Fission
by HomerNet
Summary: When Ranma Saotome and Usagi Tsukino collide in the middle of their respective transformations, it leads to a whole slew of changes in the lives of both heroes. Ch. 8, Part 1 up
1. Prologue

Fission

By HomerNet

Disclaimer: Ranma ½ and Sailor Moon are properties of their respective owners who are not me. This is an original work by the author and any resemblance to the works it derives from is totally intentional and meant as a form of praise and flattery. No money is being made off of this in any way.

Author's Notes: I keep writing fics I keep SWEARING I'll never, ever write! But this one just called out to me, darnit!

Prologue:

Time gets away from you.

This was ever apparent to Sailor Pluto, for whom time had done it's level best to impersonate Houdini for over 3,000 years.

Contrary to the views of those she worked closely with (and completely beyond the ken of those she didn't), her job was not to force the timeline to her whimsy and lock every possible contingency away. In fact, contingency locking was one of the very LAST things she considered as a sort of "Scorched Earth" policy. Up until that point, she did her best to..._nudge_ the general course of things in the general direction of Crystal Tokyo. Her girls (as she sometimes refered to the other Senshi) would handle the rest. Terrible things, like World War II, tended to happen when she had to cap off a contingency timeline to keep the world from going Bad (with a capital 'B'). Very bad indeed.

Although that one with the tentical-rape demons had it's appeals for someone who had experienced 3,000 years of sexual conquests...

The simple fact of the matter was that there was "Real" time, wherein things happened to most every day mortals, and subjective time, something which Setsuna -a.k.a.- Sailor Pluto, had an over-abundance of. Subjective time was a screwy thing. One could literally spend YEARS idly dining with Ford Prefect at Millyways, then return to one's own "Real" time to have less than a second pass. Conversely, one could chase an errant mouse that had somehow made it's way into Pluto Palace through the timegates on accident and dart back through after a mere second of realizing one's error, only to return approximately 30 years later, having one's friends all graduate, go to college, graduate from THAT, pursue careers and love, not necessarily in that order, have kids, raise them, and have THOSE kids start pursue careers and love, again not necessarily in that order.

Of course, being the Senshi of Time had it's advantages. One of those was that she could indiscriminately bounce through time at will. The chief difficulty in this was finding the _right_ moment to jump back to. Schrodinger's Cat haunted Sailor Pluto like, well, ANY cat haunted Ranma Saotome. No matter where she went, if she jumped blindly, she would affect the timestream in some way. Even viewing the course of time had it's consequences, as she had to watch how events played out, _all_ the way out, before she could decide on whether or not to change things around, and even then she had to explore loads of _other_ branches of time, other contingencies, to see what affects her interference might have. It was rather akin to watching a very long, very boring Gilligan's Island marathon where every episode was a repeat with only _tiny_ variations, like Gilligan's hat being blue, and every episode being produced without a laughtrack, score, and filmed in real time. Oh, and not being allowed to use the fast forward button, 'cause you might MISS something.

And her associates wondered why she seemed so humorless.

One can understand how, after years of that kind of monotony, Sailor Pluto would choose to take a vacation, just get away from it all for a while.

She had used the odd quirks of her profession (that being, naturally, Guardian of Time) to hop out for a bit. Take a few days off, go to Disneyworld, play with the micro-raptors...

...did we mention that she could take a vacation to literally any possible version of Earth conceivable?

Anyway, she strode into the gate room, popped off the silly mouse ears, and checked the "real" time clock.

Bugger, six months had passed. She checked the Crystal Tokyo map; still there and holding strong at 98...

Wait.

When did the Imperium Palace get eight Junon cannons, one for each point on the compass? And what was with the red and black subtower in the Nerima district?

Sighing, Sailor Pluto grabbed a bag of Doritos, yanked the timestaff out of her "stuffspace" pocket, sat down on the couch she had set up just for this purpose, and hit the magical staff equivalent of a rewind button.


	2. Fuel

Fission

By HomerNet

Disclaimer: Ranma ½ and Sailor Moon are properties of their respective owners who are not me. This is an original work by the author and any resemblance to the works it derives from is totally intentional and meant as a form of praise and flattery. No money is being made off of this in any way.

Author's Notes: I keep writing fics I keep SWEARING I'll never, ever write! But this one just called out to me, darnit!

Chapter 1: Fuel

Ranma was having one of his usual bad days. _One of these days_, he mused, _I'll learn to keep my big mouth SHUT!_

The mostly calm thought process he was now enjoying wasn't really due to any relaxing environment or position. Running pel-mel across rooftops while avoiding spatula shuriken, spiked gymnastics clubs, and the occasional Amazon arrow isn't exactly relaxing. The casual demeanor to his thought process was simply due to repetition; he'd done this same thing, or similar, far too many times to have to even worry about where to put his feet, let alone focus on the situation.

This gave him ample opportunity to examine how he came to have two of his fiancee's and The Black Rose after him with rather deadly weaponry. Tensions had been rather strained at lunch, after all. Kodachi tended to do that all by herself, then add Ukyo, who was already a bit irritated at Akane's latest attempt at cooking (an okonomiyaki that was, naturally, a total wreck), then Shampoo dropped in. Add the fact that all four of them had brought food for Ranma to eat, throw in a pinch of jealousy, stir...

_Tape!_ he thought, _I'll just use tape over my mouth, keep a role in my pocket, like that gaijin guy on TV, wasisname, Muh-gai-vur!_

Suggesting that they all just get a room wasn't the smartest thing he could have said. He, of course, meant that they should take their argument where the Average Civilian wouldn't be pestered by massively overpowered martial arts. The Fiancee Front had taken it to mean that he wanted them to treat them all in a "manly" fashion (as his mother would say) and the implication was that he wanted them _all_ at the _same time_. He had, of course, not realized that this was the conclusion they had come to, so he wouldn't have known that suggesting that the "go do it without him" would have sparked the response it did.

That is to say, like a match being lit at the tip of a gas pump nozzle.

* * *

Usagi didn't often visit Nerima.

This was less due to the fact that she didn't really care one way or another whether she went there, and more a bit of rare (for her) common sense.

There were rumors that the Nerima ward had strange goings-on. Energy-vampire teachers, rooftop leaping superhumans, the occasional monster or demon. Most people would wave off these rumors and go anyway. Concidering that Usagi was one of the active participants in the same types of rumors regarding Juuban ward, she paid damned close attention to said rumors and steered clear of the area by the simple expedient that if she didn't see it happening, she didn't have to get involved. Simple logic, but it kept her life simple.

Well, as simple as her life _can_ get what with being Sailor Moon and all.

In fact, the only reason she was in the area at all was because Mamoru, or Mamo-chan as she liked to call him, had needed to pick up something from a college friend of his in the area. She had accompanied him in the hopes of sneaking an ice cream date in, something he was hinting at already thinking of already, when he got a call on his cell phone from _another_ college friend, this one a student at Nekomikoka U. They needed some help with getting some friends out of a tight spot. She had heard her boyfriend expressing disbelief and incredulity, spouting surprised phrases such as, "Billboard?" and, "Where did they get a JET engine from?" and the clincher, "She flashed WHAT at them!"

After being on the phone for more than five minutes, he sighed, "Usa-chan, can you hang out for a bit here? Some friends of mine need a ride, and there won't be enough room for you and I DEFINETLY don't want to...inflict some of these characters on you."

Giving him a tight hug, she thoroughly confused Mamoru's friend Kai, who had been eavesdropping. "I saved the world several times now, I'll be OK 'till you get back."

"I had to wait two lifetimes to be with you, it just seems like forever when we're apart."

Kai didn't know whether to barf at the WAFFyness of it or call the psych unit.

In the end, Kai hadn't called the psych unit, and Usagi eventually decided to browse the small shops that lined a nearby street. The contents of the shops boggled her mind sometimes, and she wondered who in their right mind would enchant something so simple as a toy fishing rod, something any kid might want to buy, with a very powerful love spell not once but MASS PRODUCE said toy fishing rod and have them sold like cheap tourist trinkets. And they were genuine magic, too. Her Ginzuishou had reacted slightly when she approached them. She had considered calling the cops, but who would believe her?

The author would like to point out at this time that the Nerima division of the Tokyo PD had a VERY experienced Magic Control unit and would have shut down the shop for inspections if she had simply left an anonymous post-it with the words, "There's magic at this store" and the address on the police station's front door. Usagi can be forgiven for not knowing this, as she is, as has been mentioned, somewhat inexperienced in the ways of Nerima.

She had just about reached the end of the street when her communicator bleeped at her.

Major fads in electronics was not something that Usagi paid a whole lot of attention to, especially given that her "night job" afforded her access to technology at least 500 years more advanced than the top-of-the line equipment used by the top universities in Japan, the United States, or anywhere else on Earth. (There was, of course, Washuu's lab, but as Washuu kept that in a subspace pocket who's _door_ was on Earth, that didn't qualify) Pagers, then later cell phones had made it considerably easier to explain away the occasional chirps and dings that came out of the pocket she kept her Senshi communicator in, as a result, nobody looked at her fishy when she ducked in a walkway between two buildings that was, perhaps, nine feet wide to dig out her communicator.

She popped it open, "Moon here!"

"Moon! We have a priority one emergency!" said the tiny face of Sailor Mercury from the small round screen on the communicator, "Three youma are attacking civilians in a mall, no energy drain, just an attack!"

As Usagi grimaced she heard a tiny, "Venus Love-me Chain!" in the background followed by an explosion. Mercury flinched forward, shielding her eyes from falling debris.

"Where are you!" said Usagi urgently.

"It's the new mall about four blocks from school, do you know the one?"

Usagi nodded and said, "Yes!" just in case the nod didn't translate too well through the tiny screens.

"I've already called in the Outers, but we could use your final attacks!"

"I'll be there as soon as I can, but I'm a district away," said Usagi, slipping into her rarely seen Princess persona, "Get the civilians out of there, take the youma out if you can, and keep the combat contained!"

"Understood, Mercury out!" the screen went black as the link was cut.

Looking around, Usagi decided that this was as good a place as any to transform if she went further back between the buildings.

Digging out her Ginzuishou, she clutched her purse close and said, "Moon Prism Power Make-up!" The sound of her voice completely covering the sound of a pipe being snapped by a spatula shuriken.

* * *

Ranma frowned as he realized what section of town they were in. It was a smaller shopping district, not nearly as big or flashy as the Ginza, but a place for a great many innocent bystanders to be. Where innocent bystanders were, Ranma knew from experience, there was often a good chance that said bystanders could get hurt. He risked a glance back to see if his "admirers" had cooled off any. That errant glance was enough for him to miss a pepple that had rolled into his path since the last time he had taken this particular route, causing him to reflexively buckle his knee to keep the weight off the rock.

The had two consequences, one of which he would discover in approximately twenty seconds, but the immediate consequence was that it forced him into a tumbling roll and he went right off the rooftop he was on. Given that he regularly executed drops and falls, even unplanned, from far greater heights than a three story building, it was no panic for him.

This was about the time he realized what the second consequence would be.

* * *

Usagi's body went slightly limp as her form raised into the air, her regular day wear dissolving in a burst of light as ribbons swirled around her. She felt a bit of water hit her as she slowly spun, but didn't worry about it as she had been in the midst of raging infernos during transformations and nothing untoward had happened. Ami had once theorized they could transformed in nearly any environment they could draw enough breath for the activation phrase, but nobody particularly wanted to test that theory.

* * *

Ranma, ever the expert martial artist, looked down and instantly processed the area where he would be landing. 

He saw Ukyo's spatula shuriken embedded in a wall, no doubt only there because it had missed his head when he dropped due to the pebble.

He saw the water coming out of a pipe, noted that it was most likely _cold_ water, and spraying out right where he would land. _Aw, man!_ the thought registered briefly, _Can't I just stay a guy for ONE full day?_

He also saw what looked like a girl, floating, bathed in light and ribbons and not a whole lot else, EXACTLY where he was going to hit the ground.

"HEY, LOOKOUT!" he shouted.

* * *

Usagi's eyes snapped open in the midst of her transformation to see a person headed through the air straight for her. Her eyes went wide...

* * *

When Ranma changed from a boy to a girl or vise versa, he rarely felt anything other than the water and the temperature therof. In fact, he sometimes didn't even notice _that_ if he was daydreaming or distracted. 

This time, however, it felt like he had bit down on aluminum foil, hard, then stuck his finger in a light socket.

* * *

Usagi normally didn't really register what happened when she transformed. There was always the gentle caress of magic, the surge of power, and, of course, the slightly breezy feeling one gets when nearly naked. 

This time something else happened. There was a sensation not unlike being completely doused in water that was then hit with an electric charge.

* * *

The outside observer (that would be _you_, gentle reader) would at this point expect something silly to happen like often does in these kinds of stories. Ranma-chan wearing Sailor Moon's outfit while Sailor Moon would be wearing Ranma's usual cloths, for example. 

That is not what happened.

The outside observer, instead of aforementioned silly happening, saw the physically impossible as Ranma passed right through the transforming Usagi.

* * *

Both Ranma-chan and Sailor Moon collapsed to their knees, muscles unlocking slowly and the shock of the unusual change wearing off. Breathing heavily, they simultaneously turned around and said, "Are you alright?" 

They blinked at each other. "Uh..." grunted Ranma, dispelling the brief thought that maybe some sort of weird magic mirror clone type thing was going on as Sailor Moon didn't mimic her.

They remained locked in that tableau for only a moment longer as the battle cries of Ranma's suitors echoed down into the alley from the rooftops above. They weren't quite there yet, but would be in seconds. Ranma-chan knew she had just seconds to hide and didn't want to use the Umi-sen-ken in front of a stranger. "Er, I gotta go..." she said.

Sailor Moon blinked, remembering that she had to be somewhere, like, _now_ if she wanted to save lives. "Rrrright, me too!"

Had either of them been more learned in the ways of physics or magic, they might have known that what they just did was impossible and dangerous and they should be checked out by the authorities on either subject immediately. (That being Ami, a.k.a. Sailor Mercury, and Cologne, a.k.a. Really Old Goul)

Instead, they respectively leaped off in different directions, doing their best to hide their transit, one from pursuers, one from the general public.

Of course, given that either of them dealt with the impossible and dangerous on a regular basis, they might not have cared anyway.


	3. Neutrino Injection

Fission

By HomerNet

Disclaimer: Ranma ½ and Sailor Moon are properties of their respective owners who are not me. This is an original work by the author and any resemblance to the works it derives from is totally intentional and meant as a form of praise and flattery. No money is being made off of this in any way.

Author's Notes: RANMA ½ WILL BEND YOUR BRAIN! RUN! RUN WHILE THERE'S STILL TIME!

Chapter 2: Neutrino Injection

Usagi was doing something strange. Something totally out of character. Something so wildly beyond what her normal behavior was that, if they knew, her friends and family would be shocked and appalled and would have immediately taken steps to have her checked for mental or physical health issues (in the case of her family and friends) or youma possession (in the case of her fellow Senshi).

Usagi was laying in bed, unable to sleep.

In some unknown corner of the multiverse, on a world so close to it's own sun that the average temperature never dropped below 100 degrees and by a weird set of coincidences was a hive of evil, had flames and lava tubes gouting on a continual basis, and had somehow developed life and was host to a civilization that called their world "Hell" and the nominal leader/king/emperor was given the title of "Satan" upon taking the throne, they were suddenly, inexplicably experiencing their first ever snowfall.

Usagi adjusted her feet, being careful to not bump into Luna, who was gently snoring in a curled up ball at the foot of the bed. Sighing, she played over the battle from earlier in the day in her head. All in all, everything had gone well. The team was coordinated, effective, and kept the property damage and civilian casualties to a minimum. Cooperation with civil officials, like police officers, went well, especially during the post battle cleanup, and Venus, ever the verbal klutz in a relaxed setting proved once again that she could play the press like a cheap fiddle. Even her late arrival had not seriously affected the outcome, the others having taken out one youma and severely crippling a second by the time she had made it from Nerima.

What was bothering her was all throughout the fight she kept getting the notion that there was an attack she could have used besides her various staff attacks or her tiara. Throughout the battle the attack flitted about the edge of her consciousness, not wanting to come out into focus.

She had actually experienced this frustration before. When she and the other Inner Senshi were first activated, they all went through periods of escalation where their previous attacks were proving ineffective and the more advanced, more powerful attacks weren't manifesting themselves right away. Some of those fights were downright hell and they often were surprised to be alive afterward, but coming out of the battle with a new, more powerful attack sometimes made it worth it.

Screwing up her eyebrows, she lay in bed looking at the ceiling. _Mo...something? Mobisha? Fierce Tiger?_ Thoughts flitted around in her head as she tried to complete the attack mentally. She lifted her hands to examine them. _Something with hands and...spirit?_ She cupped her hands together in front of her chest, then slowly pushed them forward until her arms were completely extended, spreading her hands apart as she did so until her hands were splayed so the fingers were pointing out and her wrists were together. Somehow she knew that there was supposed to be a shot of energy that would fly out at this point if she had done the move right.

When nothing happened for several heartbeats, she sighed and dropped her arms to her side with a light thump. Luna stirred slightly, but being far too used to Usagi's usual sleep patterns, that is to say an all out attack on the mattress to prevent it from returning to life, the Moon Cat didn't wake up.

Realizing that laying there trying to get the attack to form wasn't working, she decided that she should just relax and let the thoughts flow, and if she fell to sleep in the meantime, perhaps her subconscious would bring the knowledge out through a dream...

No, wait, she just decided she was tired and bored by trying to remember and fell asleep. This is Usagi, after all.

* * *

Ranma dragged her body into the Tendo household. She had purposely stayed away from all her usual haunts and eating joints in hopes that her fiancees would not be able to find her. While it had worked, it left her hungry and tired. She went into the kitchen and checked the refrigerator-freezer. Feeling a sudden urge for ice cream, she grabbed one of the pint buckets that weren't locked (Nabiki didn't trust even those locks she did put on, but since she didn't want to have a freezer equipped safe installed in her room just to store ice cream, she considered the locks sufficient for the investment), snagged a spoon and plopped down at the table. Only then did she notice her mother, who had apparently been reading by a small light by the TV. "Oh, hi mom. Didn't see you there." 

Nodoka's mouth crinkled into a smile, "That's quite alright dear. Tell me, what kept you out so late?"

Ranma, having wasted no time, was already savoring her third bite.

In some unknown corner of the multiverse, on a world so close to it's own sun that the average temperature never dropped below 100 degrees and by a weird set of coincidences was a hive of evil, had flames and lava tubes gouting on a continual basis, and had somehow developed life and was host to a civilization that called their world "Hell" and the nominal leader/king/emperor was given the title of "Satan" upon taking the throne, the current Satan cursed rather foully and killed a servant to vent his frustration at the renewed snowstorm that was currently laying siege to his palace.

Nodoka can be forgiven for not noticing that Ranma wasn't inhaling his ice cream but was instead tenderly caressing each spoonful in a near erotic fashion with her tongue. She hadn't spent nearly as much time with her son as she would have liked, so didn't know that what Ranma was doing was in any way unusual. Besides, this being Ranma she was _still_ doing it damned fast, so it just looked like a regular eating pace to Nodoka. "Oh, you know, the usual." Ranma said, digging her fourth spoonful out of the carton and proceeding to make sweet oral love to it.

"I'm afraid I don't, dear. What is 'the usual' for you?" replied Nodoka as she dropped a bookmark in her book and closed it.

Ranma was getting well and truly into a good ice cream inspired endorphine high by this point. Small bursts of pleasure were popping in her brain, gently relaxing the verbal defensive walls that she had built over the years. Fortunately, there was no reason for said walls in this conversation, so no negative repercussions would occur due to her lose tongue. Speaking of her tongue, she noticed there was no ice cream on it, and proceeded to remedy that situation while responding to her mother. "Oh, well, usually there's two or more girls in the room then I open my mouth and stick my foot in it." Further sounds from her mouth would have been muffled by the spoonful of ice cream her mouth was now doing naughty, naughty things to, so she stopped talking to allow her mouth it's ice cream conjugal visit.

"I see," said Nodoka with an amused look on her face that Ranma completely missed, "I suppose that would explain Akane's mood when she came home from school today."

"Mmmm," was Ranma's reply. _Less talky, more eaty of ice cream!_ her tongue screamed to her brain, her stomach agreed, and her lower nerve functions presently held hostage at gunpoint by the endorphine rush gave her brain a kick in the rear to get another spoonful in her mouth.

"Yes, she said something about you wanting to do something 'perverted' with _all_ four of 'your girls?'" Ranma could hear the quotes in her mother's query.

"Mrm," Ranma swallowed, "I don't know what I said wrong, Mom. All I wanted was to keep the fighting from hurting non-martial artists is all. It looked like they were gonna _really_ get into it..." she sighed and stabbed her spoon into the pint cup, noticing a bit forlornly that it was already 2/3 empty.

Nodoka wished she knew how to help her child more. As it was she felt she was playing serious catch-up to nearly everyone else when it came to dealing with her son. "Well, dear, perhaps it's your vocabulary."

"Muh wuh?" said Ranma around a mouthful of ice cream.

"Don't speak with your mouth full dear, it's not proper."

Ranma swallowed, "My what?"

"Your vocabulary, the words you use and the context you use them in."

"Ah," grunted Ranma just as she took another bite. She once again savored the cool confection and noticed she had, _maybe_, two spoonfuls left in the pint. _Nuts, _she thought. "What's 'context?'"

"It's the...shouldn't you have learned this in school?"

"Aww, man!" she whined at the combination of parental reproach and the realization that she had now consumed all the ice cream in the pint, and if she ate more she'd have to pose for Nabiki's camera to pay for it, "Not you too!"

"'Not me too,' what, dear?" asked Nodoka with curiosity.

"First I got Pops going on about, 'Honor the schools, boy,'" she changed her voice to produce a sarcastic imitation of her father that her mother giggled at behind a hand, "Then it's the teachers, AND Mr. Tendo, AND Akane, even Kasumi's gettin' on my case. Well," she amended, "She said, 'Oh, my,' when she saw my report card, but you _know_ that's pretty bad coming from Kasumi." Once again Ranma did a vocal imitation, this time nearly dead-on for the eldest Tendo sister and once again left her mother giggling.

"Well, dear, there's one thing I've learned over the years."

Ranma absently tossed the ice cream pint over her shoulder, "What's that Mom?"

For a moment Nodoka didn't respond as she watched the pint bucket rebound off of no less than three surfaces before neatly landing in the kitchen trash. Smiling she focused on her son, "If one person calls you an ass, that's his problem. If several people call you an ass, it's time to get fitted for a saddle."

Ranma boggled at her mother, not expecting that kind of language out of the same mouth that continually spoke of "manly virtues" and propriety and whatnot.

Before either could say anything else, Ranma heard a distinct cry for, "Help!"

* * *

Ami's Mercury computer blipped on a warning light. Ami herself was passed out, her head resting on her AP Trig homework and, unfortunately, facing away from the computer who's light was on.

* * *

"Who was that!" said Ranma with alarm. 

"Who was what, dear?" asked Nodoka.

"That shout, didn't you hear it?" snapped Ranma with surprise as she turned back to face her mother.

"I'm...afraid not..."

Ranma didn't hear the rest of her sentence as she heard, "Somebody, please!" the voice, a girl, screamed in fright.

"THAT! Didn't you hear that scream!" she looked in the direction it seemed to have come from, apparently the kitchen, but she knew there was nothing in there but pots and dishes and such. Ignoring her mother's concerned look, she stood and stepped through the back door out onto the patio. It wasn't coming from the kitchen, it was coming from a direction the kitchen just happened to be in the way of.

Nodoka followed her son outside. "Dear, what is it?"

"Someone's in trouble," responded Ranma. All thoughts of ice cream and school and fiancees flew from her head. She knew what she had to do, protect the weak. It was her sworn duty as a martial artist, after all.

"How do you know, dear?" said his mother.

"I don't know how I know, I just do."

"Should I wake your father?" Nodoka turned slightly to do just that.

"Nah," said Ranma dismissively, "I'll handle it." With that, she leaped to the roof.

"Call us if you need any help!" called Nodoka after her son.

"Sure thing, Ma!" came the fading reply.

Nodoka smiled gently as she sent good thoughts after her son. Nabiki's window opened and the mercenary girl glanced up and looked back down at the porch. "What was all that about?"

"Oh," replied Nodoka, "Just my son being manly again." Nabiki paused, not sure how to parse that sentence given the multifacetted definition of "manly" that Nodoka had, "And shouldn't you be in bed, young lady?"

Nabiki sighed, "Yes, aunty." She ducked back inside and a few moments later her light went out.

Nodoka smiled and re-entered the house to wait for Ranma to return to her.

* * *

A girl, perhaps 16 years old, paced in her bedroom. It would soon be time, _her_ time! A time for revenge, a time to bring down the one person that had caused her shame and anguish for all these years! In fact, it would begin tomorrow, and her arch nemesis would RUE the day they crossed Mia Asagura! 

"Soon, Usagi Tsukino, very soon you will look into the face of your worst nightmare and DESPAIR! MWA-HAHAHAHA!"

"Hey!" came a voice through the door to her room, "Keep it down in there, some people are trying to sleep!"

"Daaaaddyyyy! I'm being eeeeviiilll heeere!" Mia whined.

"Yeah, yeah, evil. Daddy's got a big meeting tomorrow, so pipe it down, OK, kitten?"

Mia hung her head, her glasses slipping down her nose slightly, "OK, dad, I guess..."

"That's my girl!" the slightly muffled voice replied.

Her rant ruined, Mia shut off her lights and went to bed.

* * *

Another girl, this one _not_ at home even though it was _way_ past her curfew, huddled against a wall as a..._thing_ stepped closer to her. It was perhaps the ugliest thing she had ever seen, standing eight feet tall, wearing, of all things, a giant homework worksheet for a dress, and had pens and pencils sticking out of it's back like spines. That it looked vaguely female disturbed her quite a bit, but not nearly as much as the grasping tack shaped claws that were reaching for her head. 

"Yo, ugly!" came a voice. Both the girl and the youma turned to see a short red-headed girl perched on a lamp post. "I normally don't hit girls, but I think I can make an exception for you."

The youma merely pulled one of it's pencil like spines out of it's back and threw it at the girl yelling, "DIE!" in a gravelly voice.

The redhead just leaped over the arc of the pencil-spine and landed neatly as the projectile fell to the earth and blew up. Ranma simply sauntered closer as a concussion wave fluttered her clothes and hair dramatically, "And my mom says homework won't kill me." she quipped.

The youma stretched it's hand out and papers shot out of nowhere. Cartwheeling to the side as the odd shuriken jammed themselves into the pavement, the martial artist said, "Awww, that's not nice, you shouldn't litter like that. Especially when there's a trash can real handy!" to demonstrate her point, she kicked the nearby trash can at the youma with enough force to knock the monster on it's back.

Growling, the youma tried to stand up, only to be knocked right back down with a well placed kick. The kick had enough force to knock the creature even closer to the victim, however, who was still frozen in fright. Without hesitation, the youma reached out to draw some energy from the girl and spread it's talons wide. Ranma panicked and shot off a Moko Takabisha, knocking it's hand aside before the monster could complete it's attack.

Correction, knocking it's hand OFF. The ball of ki had completely severed the arm.

Boggling, Ranma watched as the severed arm turned to dust, then whisps of ash, then nothing. It took all of half a second, just one second less time than it took for the youma to regrow the arm.

"You're not human, are you?"

The creature responded with a howl and lunged at Ranma.

"Didn't think so," her visage turned grim, "Well, in that case, time to take the kid gloves off."

* * *

The Mercury Computer, not having it's light acknowledged for some time now, began to beep. Ami's head popped up and she said, "...don't eat the cosine!" she blinked, "Huh?" Getting her bearings a bit, she looked around to see what had woken her. 

The Mercury Computer beeped again, drawing Ami's attention and pulling her further awake.

* * *

Luna awoke with a start. She felt a youma presence, low strength but still powerful enough to be a corporeal manifestation.

* * *

Rae sat up, woken quickly from a deep sleep. "Youma..." she whispered.

* * *

Artimis stirred slightly, but didn't wake. Lazy kitty. 

"Why I'd love to be Mrs. DiCaprio..." muttered Mina in her sleep.

* * *

Ranma held the follow-through for her vacuum blade attack and watched as the blades tore an 'X' in the monster before her. With an unearthly scream the creature started to fall to the ground in four parts, but vanished in a puff of smoke, ash, and dust. 

"Awww, yeah," said the redhead, "Who'da'man!"

* * *

The dot indicating the location of the youma in Tokyo suddenly went out, and Ami blinked at the computer. "Eh?" she grunted to herself, "I've never seen that happen before..." Her communicator chirped at her. She reached over with one hand and popped it open. "Mercury here." 

Luna's face appeared on the tiny screen, "Ami, did you notice that?"

"Sudden youma indicator followed by the youma dropping off the map? Yes."

The tiny screen bisected itself and Rae's face appeared in the other half. "I felt it too. Any explanation?"

Before either Ami or Luna could respond, Makoto's face appeared on the screen, "This is Jupiter, what's with the all-call?"

"We have a mystery on our hands..." Ami began as the three who had sensed the disturbance filled in the tall Senshi.

"Do you have a location on that?" said Makoto. Ami nodded and read off the street intersection. Makoto scowled, "I think I'm closest, although Mina could get there in about the same time. Where is she?"

"Where's Artimis? He's supposed to wake her when this kind of thing happens." replied Luna.

"Speaking of waking people, where's Usagi?" said Rae.

Her answer came when Luna disappeared from the screen, apparently knocked over by a pillow. A moment later Luna leaned back into camera, "You wake her up!"

Rei rolled her eyes but didn't reply as Makoto spoke up, "I'll go check it out. No sense in rousing sleeping beauty over there unless we have to, or we'll never hear the end of it tomorrow."

* * *

Ranma once again entered her not-quite-temporary home. This time, she saw her mother reading and said, "Heya, Mom!" right away. 

"Oh, well, hello dear. You look to be in a better mood. Did everything turn out well?"

"Oh, yeah!" spouted Ranma enthusiastically, "Kicked some monster butt!"

"Monster?" Nodoka ignored the slang, "What monster?"

"You know, it was one of the goofiest monsters I've ever seen, and I've seen some strange ones," she put her finger and thumb to her chin in a classic thinking pose, "It was attacking me with homework."

Nodoka smiled and said, "Homework? Are you sure you didn't go and attack one of your teachers?"

Ranma rolled her eyes, "Yes mom, I'm sure. Had some nasty attacks, though."

"Ah, yes, the dreaded participle." Nodoka couldn't help but poke some fun.

"Maaa! It was attacking a girl!"

"Oh," replied Nodoka, "Oh, my! You rescued her, I take it?"

"Yep! I think her and her family are new to the area."

"Why do you say that?"

"Well, she was out _way_ late, which nobody in their right mind does in Nerima, and her parents didn't believe me when I told them how she'd been attacked."

Nodoka nodded, "Yes, it sounds like they haven't gotten used to the area. Perhaps Kasumi and I can pay them a visit tomorrow to welcome them."

"Eh," Ranma shrugged, "Break the news to them gently, Ma."

"What news?"

"Things like monsters and magic and all."

"Yes, good point," Nodoka pursed her lips, "And what of the monster?"

"Oh, when I beat it, it turned to dust."

Nodoka afforded herself another smile, "So, you rescued the girl and slayed the monster? Just like a knight in shining armor rescuing a damsel in distress?"

Ranma groaned, "Maaa! I wasn't exactly equipped to be a knight..." _and I aint talkin' about armor!_ Ranma completed in her head.

"But you rescued her anyway, oh, my manly son!" she swept the smaller girl into a hug.

"Gak, Ma!" came Ranma's muffled voice from the vicinity of Nodoka's breasts, "I'm tired, I wanna go to bed!"

Nodoka released the hug but kept one arm around Ranma, "Now, dear, it's a parent's job to do things that embarrass their children. You're the only one I've got and I have to make up for lost time."

Ranma's chagrin evaporated under the beaming smile of her mother. "Yeah, I know, Mom."

As she guided Ranma up the stairs to the guest room, she said, "Did you want to take a bath to change back to a boy?"

"Nah," Ranma replied, "I'd prolly fall asleep in the tub. 'sides, 'round this house I never know if I'm gonna wake up from a bucket of water or landin' in the pond."

* * *

Ami finished another equation with a flourish just as her communicator bleeped at her. She tapped the Recieve button, "Mercury here." 

Sailor Jupiter's face appeared on the screen, "I'm at the location you gave me." Jupiter hesitated for a moment, "There is evidence of a youma attack, but it's odd..."

"How so?" replied Ami. Rei, Mina, or Usagi might have snapped off a witty retort, but the thought never crossed the mind of the sometime Sailor Mercury.

"Well, there's property damage, and some youma dust, but there's no victim. I can see where the victim had been cornered, and there's a faint trace of magic to the area, but it's as if the youma was stopped by one of us."

"How do you mean, 'traces of magic?'"

"You know that feeling we get deep in your bones when we're close to magic, like a Silver Millenium artifact?" Ami nodded. All the scouts had those feelings at one time or another, Ami relied on it less, as her senses could be betrayed. Still, feedback was feedback and had to be considered. "Well," continued Jupiter, "I can feel that."

Ami thought for a moment, then said, "Well, if there's no immediate threat, I guess we stand down for the night."

"Right," said Jupiter, "I'll call the others and let them know, you look spent. Did you fall asleep doing homework again?"

"Yes..." muttered Ami hesitantly.

"Heh, figures. Get to bed."

Ami sighed, "I will, Mercury out."

"Jupiter out." The link went dead and the screen turned black.

Ami turned back to her homework to put it away, then looked at the problem she had just been working on. _You know, I bet I can just do one more equation..._ her thought was interrupted by her communicator beeping again. She hit the Recieve button, "Mercury here."

"No," said Jupter without preamble, "You can't do one more equation. Go to bed." the line went dead.

Ami sighed and went to bed.


	4. Particle Reaction

Fission

By HomerNet

Disclaimer: Ranma ½ and Sailor Moon are properties of their respective owners who are not me. This is an original work by the author and any resemblance to the works it derives from is totally intentional and meant as a form of praise and flattery. No money is being made off of this in any way.

Author's Notes: No, Ranma does not get pregnant...yet.

Chapter 3: Particle Reaction

While Luna was accustomed to Usagi's rather...violent sleep patterns and could sleep through just about any of them at this point, being kicked out of the bed will still cause one to wake up rather suddenly. From her vantage point on the floor, the moon cat looked up to see Usagi, still quite asleep, thrashing about in her bed.

"No, no, no more..." the girl kept muttering over and over.

More than a little worried, Luna hopped up on the nightstand, deftly dodged a flailing arm, and bounced onto Usagi's chest. "Usagi! Usagi, wake up!" Luna began bouncing lightly on the girl hoping to shake her awake.

Usagi found herself being forced into merciful consciousness and out of the rather horrific nightmare. She opened her eyes...

"YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" she screamed and somehow managed to wedge herself into a corner on the ceiling, gripping the wallpaper and ceiling stucco with just her fingernails and nothing else. "C-c-cat!"

Luna, for her part, was simply floored. Literally. Usagi's sudden flair for acrobatics and what looked like ninjitsu had caused a repeat of Luna's earlier date with medium shag carpet. She looked up at Usagi and boggled at the girl, simply not understanding what prompted the reaction, let alone how the girl was staying up on the ceiling completely unassisted.

"Usagi! Get a hold of yourself!"

"GAH! C-cat! Talking c-cat!" Usagi's shaking reached minor earthquake status.

"SAILOR MOON! You snap out of it this instant!" snapped Luna impatiently.

At once, Usagi's face cleared of all terror to look curiously at Luna. "Huh? Hey, Luna, how did all my stuff get on the ceiling?"

Luna didn't say anything, she just stared back at Usagi with a half-lidded look and ears slightly back. A moment later, Usagi fell to the floor with a WHUMP!

"Oooow!"

* * *

Ranma casually brushed his teeth with one hand and rubbing a small lump on his forehead with the other while pondering the mysteries of tomboys and how they somehow managed to bring out the worst in him. _I **really** don't think she's stupid, so why do I keep saying it?_ Shrugging, he returned his thoughts to the night before. 

Exactly how he heard the call for help was a mystery to him. Sure, he'd sensed danger before, but this was as if he was hearing the girl directly in his ear, like he had a telephone or something. No clearer than that, like she was right next to him.

"Ranma," came the irate voice of Akane through the bathroom door, "Hurry it up, we're going to be late!"

_She always says that,_ he thought, _But we almost never are..._

* * *

"WAAAA, I'M LATE!" screamed Usagi, once again running like the hounds of hell were on her heels. The morning she had a full-on legitimate excuse, but even her mother had been rather hard pressed to come up with some way to make a horrific nightmare some sort of late-worthy excuse. Her father had already taken the car to work, however, so she was still going to have to get to school on foot. 

Up ahead, she saw the gates to the school grounds and noted that there were still students milling about. _Great!_ she thought, _I'm not going to be late after all!_ She even saw Naru, looking pleased to see her be on time for once. And there was Ami, looking anxious, and Mako-chan...

Suddenly her danger-sense pinged like mad. She brought her run to a screeching halt and dove to the side using reflexes she didn't realize she had.

"So, Usagi, still good at running away!" came a voice from the spot she'd just vacated.

"Uh, what?" Usagi turned with confusion to see...

Actually, something not that uncommon for her, just totally out of place.

There, in her schoolyard, with her and all of her friends in their "civilian" clothes, was a girl in some body armor with some sort of weapon strapped to her back. Some very _revealing _body armor. Usagi never watched Project A-ko, but she would have found her next line very appropriate in response to the new girl. "Aren't you a little cold in that?"

The other girl growled and said, "Pay attention! Because of you, Usagi Tsukino, I have seen hell!"

* * *

As Ranma finished punting Kuno over the school, he sneezed. "Huh, wonder if I'm catching something...?" he paused and took a mental inventory of his body, "No, doesn't feel like..."

* * *

Somewhere in Kenya, Ryoga sneezed. This caused him to look up from his upside-down map of Detroit, "Huh? WHERE AM I NOW!"

* * *

Nearly every other student stood stunned, merely blinking in confusion at the armor-clad girl. 

"Oh...kaaay," said Makoto, "I know meatball head is a bit of a ditz, but I don't see..."

"Silence, you! This is between me and her!" barked the newcomer, "Today, Tsukino, you pay for your indiscretions against me!" With that, the girl started advancing on Usagi.

"Uh," she gulped, "Wait, who are you?"

The armor clad girl stopped, sighed, and pulled up the faceplate on the helmet, then pulled a pair of glasses from..._somewhere_ and put them on. "Do you remember me now?"

Usagi stared, thought, stared some more, then snapped her fingers. "Oh, right! You're...uh..." She remembered the face, but not the name.

"Don't strain yourself, Usagi!" the other girl snapped, whipping off her glasses and putting her faceplate back down.

"Usagi...?" Ami didn't need to ask the question.

"Mia Asagura!" said Naru suddenly.

And Usagi remembered...

Flashback

* * *

"Aaah, I'm late!" Usagi screamed, plowing right over another girl with glasses.

* * *

"Oh, no, I'm late again!" Cried Usagi as she bumped the same girl with glasses into a locker.

* * *

A note landed on Mia's desk, labelled "To Usagi." Mia picked it up and looked at it, then at the blond two desks away, and was about to raise her hand to throw it out when the teacher called out, "Mia! No passing notes in class, go stand in the hall!" 

"But...!"

"No excuses, now!"

* * *

End flashback 

"...and then there was the frisbee incident, and the time I tripped over her in P.E., and..." everyone around her sighed. All of it perfectly Usagi, and all a lot of straws on one camel's back.

"That's right! Because of you, I lost my perfect, perfect 4.0 GPA..." Mia trailed off whistfully, here eyes glistening slightly. Not that anyone could see, what with the faceplate in the way... "I have come to have my revenge!"

Umino chose that moment to speak up, "I thought you were here because your father got a transfer and had to move you back to the area and you needed to go to school here..." he finally shut up under the death glare he received from Mia.

Makoto had finally had enough. "Listen, I don't know why you think Usagi would do that to you on purpose, but this is getting ridiculous. I'm going to take you to the principles office and report you!" Mako had matured a bit in her dealings with bullies and misfits, she now worked within the system where she could, functioning as a sort of "civilian patrol" and strong-arming any troublemakers for the authorities. She grabbed Mia's arm and started to pull.

Mia casually threw her off, sending the taller girl to her butt right in front of Usagi.

"Sh...crap!" Makoto stifled the foul word since she was on school grounds, "She's a strong as a youma!"

Mia cackled maniacally, "That's right you pathetic girl! My power armor gives me the strength of 10 women!"

_Crap!_ thought Usagi, _If she's that strong, I'll have to run! I can't change into Sailor Moon here, and there's not enough room to do a..._ her thought process trailed off as she realized she had no clue what there wasn't enough room for, but the thought it had something to do with a..._tornado? How in the world would I make a tornado?_

She was so zoned out that she was almost hit by the crazy girl in power armor. She ducked, mostly on instinct, just in time.

"Eeep!" squeaked Usagi as she started running.

* * *

30 minutes later, Usagi and Mia were standing in the hall wearing identical placards that said, "I will not fight on school property, I will not run in the halls," and "I will not be late for class." 

"This is all your fault!" snapped Mia.

"WHAT?" growled Usagi.

The door slid open and the teacher glared at them, effectively shutting them up.

* * *

Ranma was sitting at lunch forcing himself to eat the bento Akane provided him. It wasn't terrible, per se, but that just meant that Kasumi had either carefully monitored it's creation or fixed it up after Akane had finished with it. He was actually rather glad that two of his fiancee's were somewhat friendly with each other, that meant they could chat while he did his best to fade into the background. He was also glad that Ukyo was secure in her cooking talents, unlike Akane, so he could hold off on eating the "Ranma special" okinomiaki that she had made for him. 

They laughed at something, probably something Akane told Ukyo about regarding this morning's antics, and he glanced up absently. He did a double-take and looked closely at a girl walking across the grounds. "Well, would you look at that..." he said, accidentally drawing the attention of the two women.

"What's up, Ranma-honey?" said Ukyo.

Rather than answer her directly, he hopped up, putting the bento down on the shelf-space of Ukyo's portable grill, and walked up to the girl. "Hey," he said, "You doing OK? You looked a little shook up last night."

The girl looked up at him confused, "Do I know you?" she said hesitantly.

"Huh?" replied Ranma, less than intelligently, "Sure, I...uh," he realized what the problem was. This was the girl he had rescued, but he was a girl at the time and of course wouldn't recognize him.

"Who's this, Ranma?" came Akane's curious voice from behind him.

"Oh, this is a girl that got attacked by a monster last night. Er," he turned back to her, "I didn't catch your name."

"Kimi..." she said shyly, not sure if she should trust these people, but the boy seemed to know a lot about her...wait, he had a similar hairstyle to the girl who saved her last night...he even looked similar. "Oh, are you the brother of that girl from last night?"

Akane looked flatly at Ranma, "Let me guess, you saved her as a girl and never told her you change?"

"That's our Ranma!" said Ukyo brightly.

Kimi started to edge away from these strange people. This guy _had_ to be the brother of the girl from last night, he was talking just as much crazy talk as the girl had, and his friends were sounding just as weird. Before she edged too far away, there was the sound of a bicycle bell and another girl, Chinese with what looked like a purple dye job on her hair.

* * *

Being the maintenance worker for Furinkan High School was a singularly thankless task. It wasn't that the work was difficult, its that there was so _much_ of it. One often got so busy fixing the stuff that broke there wasn't much time to work on the regular stuff that was mandated by the school district. 

Like sprinklers for instance.

* * *

"Hello, Airen!" chirped Shampoo. 

Both Akane and Ukyo sighed. They did NOT want the purple-haired Amazon around right now. The day had been going so well...

"Shampoo come to make up for yesterday lunch!" she said with a smile and waved at the takeout boxes in her bikes basket.

* * *

"Oops!" said the maintenance worker. He quickly flipped the switch for the sprinklers back to the 'off' position. "Heh," he chuckled, "Someone's going to get a little wet."

* * *

Akane and Ukyo brushed the water off their cloths, being somewhat used to random wetness it was no big deal, until they both registered who was in close proximity to Ranma. The caught each other's eyes, _Uh-oh!_ the thought seemed to pass between them. 

Kimi was in shock. Not only did the boy suddenly change into the girl who had rescued her last night, the purple-haired Chinese girl seemed to disappear into her clothes. The bike fell over and a muffled "Mrow!" came from the bundle of cloths as it hit the ground.

Ranma sighed. Figured that the sprinklers would turn on _now_, just when she was hoping to make a good impression on the new kid. She realized Shampoo had probably been hit as well and turned in a panic...

Shampoo struggled out of her clothing, thankful that Amazon clothing was light and, well, sparse so as to make this not too much of a struggle. Feline paws did not make for great manipulators of denim or corduroy, after all. Just as she made it out of her top and began to survey her bike, wondering how she'd manage to get hot water, dressed, and retrieve it before someone moved it, she heard a ear-piercing, "KAWAII!" and found herself fighting for breath.

She looked down to see if it was that girl her Airen was talking with that was clasping her. She found herself surprised to see not the sleeves of a school uniform, but red silk sleeves, just like on her Airen's shirt. She twisted her feline head around to see Ranma, in his female form, hugging and snuggling her like a teddy bear.

Akane's eyes bugged out and Ukyo stepped back, somehow more panicked by this display of affection than Ranma's usual reaction of just running and screaming. For a moment, neither did anything, then they both began backing away slowly, Ukyo absently hooking Kimi's arm and pulling her along.

Shampoo was confused, but she wasn't stupid. Any minute now whatever insanity Ranma found herself under would snap, then who know what would happen with him gripping her so tightly? He might go neko and attack her! She began struggling.

Ranma-chan simply sat on the ground, a huge smile on her face and her eyes closed in an expression of innocent joy as she rubbed her cheek against Shampoo's soft fur. She suddenly stopped, frozen. Ukyo and Akane noticed, Ukyo dropping to the ground and dragging Kimi with her. Akane turned to run, but was too distracted trying to keep an eye on her fiance and stumbled to the ground.

Ranma's eyes snapped open. She was holding and snuggling a c...c...CAT!

"YAAAAAARGH!"

* * *

Ranma came to in the nurses office. "Uh," she grunted, "What happened?" She sat up, the light blanket that had been covering her slipping down into her lap. 

"We were hoping you could tell us, Ranma-honey."

Akane stood next to Ukyo, both of them looking down at the seated redhead. Akane said, "You...er, cuddled with Shampoo-neko and, um..."

Ukyo smiled and said, "What 'Ms. Delicate' here is trying to say is that you realized what you were doing and fainted."

"I did not faint!" said Ranma in a scandalized voice.

"OK, you passed out." replied the chef.

Ranma scowled, but she couldn't argue with the fact that she was in the nurses office and couldn't remember how she got there.

"Ranma," said Akane tentatively, "Why didn't you go neko?"

That one brought both Ukyo and Ranma up short. _Hey, why **didn't** I go neko?_ he thought. "I...I don't know! Wait, what'd'ya mean **I** 'cuddled' Shampoo?"

"That's what you did, sugar," said Ukyo, "You were acting like she was the most adorable ca...er, feline in the world."

Ranma had no response to this. She shuddered and said, "Just get me some hot water, please?"


	5. Nuclear Excitement

Fission

By HomerNet

Disclaimer: Ranma ½ and Sailor Moon are properties of their respective owners who are not me. This is an original work by the author and any resemblance to the works it derives from is totally intentional and meant as a form of praise and flattery. No money is being made off of this in any way.

Author's Notes: To get an idea of what Mega Girl looks like, check out pictures of The iMac Girl

Chapter 4: Nuclear Excitement

Usagi casually munched on a cookie as she walked down the street. She had taken a rather round-a-bout method of getting home as that Mia girl had tried to follow her at first. Well, years of being Sailor Moon paid off nicely as she was able to ditch the vengeance obsessed girl rather quickly. Absently, she hitched her backpack a bit higher on her shoulders as she passed a manga store. She idly thought of stopping in, but decided it wouldn't be worth the hassle of trying to hide reading her favorite titles without actually buying them. Then, of course, there was the fact that whenever she did that her mother AND Luna would get on her case about shirking her homework. Besides, she could always read Rei's newest manga. Satisfied that she had made a good, nay, _leadership quality_ decision, she nodded to herself and kept on walking.

She had just about reached an intersection when her danger sense pinged again. Dancing backwards, she glanced around for Mia and was caught totally off guard when what looked like a big, rubbery mouth with spider legs skidded around the corner knocking over some trash that had been piled up for disposal and screeched back in the direction it came from. "Youma!" Surprised that one had obviously been operating for long enough to start causing havoc without Mercury, Luna, or Mars getting on the communicator to let her know, she was stunned for long enough to see what looked like _leaves_ slam into the side of the creature. It howled in pain and spat long streamers from it's mouth at it's assailant.

Usagi didn't see the leap, but she saw the landing of a girl wearing what looked like green bits of plastic that covered her sensitive areas, legs, and arms, trimmed in white, with some sort of headset type device. On one arm was some sort of cannon that seemed to engulf her forearm, wrist, and hand, _Kind of like that one old video game, whasitcalled? Oh, yeah, Rockman!_

"It will take more than that, foul creature, to defeat Mega Girl!" announced the apparent Mega Girl.

The monster, in response, lunged at Mega Girl and snapped out one of it's legs. It caught the scantily clad heroine in the stomach and she slammed into a wall. Usagi could tell she wasn't fully recovered, but the creature had already started charging Mega Girl. Glancing around, Usagi saw a trashcan lid, roughly the size of her tiara when she threw it as a disc. Without pausing she grabbed the lid, shouted, "Look out, Mega Girl!" and snapped the lid off expertly. The impromptu weapon smacked into the monster and it whipped around to face her. Usagi stepped back, not sure if she could dodge out of site in time to transform into Sailor Moon, when she saw Mega Girl's clothing change from green to bright orange.

"This aught to do the trick!" said Mega Girl as she took aim with her arm cannon and fired. A barrage of needles slammed into the creature, causing it to scream in pain. Before it could even turn around to face it's opponent, it exploded in a burst of light-balls which faded quickly.

"Huzzah! I have once again won the day! Mega Girl reigns supreme as the best magical girl in Japan!" Mega Girl's triumphant proclamation cut through the street, raising Usagi's hackles. She had just begun lowering her arm, which she had instinctively raised to protect her eyes from the burst of light, when she found Mega Girl was already right next to her. "You there, good citizen, what is your name?"

Usagi was stunned, "Uh...U...Usagi..." she stammered.

"Well, Usagi, for your good and faithful service to Tokyo's number one defender of Love and Justice, I shall make you the very first member of my fan club!" she pulled a pin from out of nowhere and pushed it into Usagi's hand, "Where this with pride at all times as an example to all other girls that there is a one, true defender of all people!" Usagi was just about to growl something about her alternate identity when Mega Girl clutched her close to her bosom. "Oh, my number one fan, fear not! I shall endeavor to protect you especially should any monster attack your fair blond locks!" With that, Mega Girl leaped to a rooftop, turned, and said, "Au revior, and hold your Mega Girl spirit high!"

Mercifully, that was the last thing the odd magical girl said as she bounced off across the rooftops. Usagi blinked, seemingly unable to take her eyes off the rooftop Mega Girl had stood on. After a few moments, she was able to muster some words from her shocked state.

"What the fu-?"

!#$&()-+

"-funny, Nabiki, that's right, it's _real_ funny." groused Ranma.

Nabiki was laughing her butt off. Word had rather quickly spread about how Ranma, Mr. Scared-of-Cats and Paragon-of-Manhood not only glomped Shampoo, a nice reverse of the usual, but actually fainted instead of going neko when he realized he was not only near a cat but snuggling it. "K...k...kawaiieeeYAAHAHAHAHA!" Nabiki couldn't even say the word to mock Ranma properly she was laughing so hard.

"It really wasn't that funny, Nabiki." said Akane with one hand over her mouth. Since the incident was now long over, Akane could look back on it with a bit of objectivity and admit that yes, it was a bit funny.

Kasumi brought them a tray of snacks, not fully able to mask the giggle that escaped her lips to add to the general mirth in the room. As she set down glasses of water to go with their finger sandwiches, Ranma eyed his warily. He'd been spending entirely too much time as a girl and it must have affected his brain.

"My heavens," came a voice from the door, "What is all that laughter about?"

"Konichiwa, Auntie!" came three cheerful female voices mixed with a masculine, "Ohayo, mom."

"Good afternoon to you all, as well." said Nodoka as she walked into the dining room, "So, do share with me what is so amusing." she said with a smile.

Suddenly the three sisters wondered if it was really that funny after all. This was a woman that expected Ranma to be manly, after all. For his part, Ranma simply began investigating the grain of the wood in the table.

Sensing the sudden change in atmosphere, Nodoka was perplexed, "Well, what did Nabiki find so amusing?"

Drawing a breath, Nabiki, having the least to lose and next to no conscience, said, "Ranma grabbed Shampoo in her cat form and passed out."

Ranma supposed she could have just handed him a blade and a shovel to better kill himself and dig his grave, but at least she said "passed out" instead of "fainted."

Nodoka's eyebrows scrunched together, "Why would my manly son pass out because he held a cat?" She had a feeling that the fact that it wasn't Shampoo's presence that caused the problem.

"Er..." Ranma started. He was saved from having to reply when there came a loud, "RANMA, PREPARE TO DIE!"

He leaped up, "P-chan!" Ranma was sure there was a time when he was happier to see the ol' porker, but he couldn't remember it.

"Ranma, sit down, please." his mother's voice cut through his excitement. He dropped back down to his seat. Nodoka calmly stood up and walked to the back door. She poked her head out and said, "Well, hello Ryoga-kun!"

"Oh, uh...hi, Mrs. Saotome," came the somewhat bashful reply.

"What have I told you about screaming like that?" Ranma, Nabiki and Akane looked in shock at Nodoka.

"...that it disturbs the neighbors..." Ranma's face broke into a smile again when he heard Ryoga's reply.

"Now, how have I asked you to announce that you would like to see Ranma?" Nodoka's voice held the perfectly chastizing motherly tone that Ranma just _hated_, and it seemed to be just the thing to keep pig-boy in line.

The pause from outside was almost tangible, "...Mrs. Saotome, can Ranma come out and play, please?"

!#$&()-+

"And she had the nerve to say that _she_ was Japan's number one magical girl!" gasped a shocked Rei.

Usagi huffed and glared at the table where her Mega Girl fan club pin lay, a large gold "#1" glinting back at her, "Yeah, it's like she's been under a _rock_ for four years!"

"Well," began Luna, "She seems to be fighting youma, so she can't be all that bad..." The mooncat was silenced by five identical stares of disbelief.

"She's arrogant! She's a lone wolf! She's...she's..." started Makoto.

"Just like you?" volunteered Artimis.

"Yes...NO!" snapped Makoto, "She's..."

"Invading our turf?" offered Minako.

"No! She's..."

"A raving nutter?" said Ami.

They all stopped what they were doing and just looked at Ami.

"What?" said the geek girl.

"Er, that's true too, but I was going to say that she's a dangerous unknown factor." said Makoto.

They pondered that for a while. Ami spoke up from behind her computer, "Well, I have found a little bit about her..."

She turned the computer to show the rest of the girls a headline about Mega Girl, "Apparently she does indeed fight monsters of various types, she's not known for her...discernment of targets." The headline reflected Ami's analysis, proclaiming in large website font, "MEGA GIRL DESTROYS STOREFRONT"

Minako began reading out loud, "Tokyo's newest magical girl may be just as much of a menace as the monsters she fights. Her weapons, unlike the more monster focused weapons used by other magical girl teams such as the Sailor Senshi, have caused indiscriminate damage to property and have even endangered civilians. 'She kept going on about how she was the defender of love and justice,' said eye-witness Naoko Takeuchi, 'I've seen the Sailor Senshi in action, and Mega Girl is no Senshi!'"

Nearly every face in the room brightened at that.

"So what do we do about her?" querried Rei.

There was a thoughtful silence, "Well," said Ami eventually, "I don't think we need to do anything about her, unless she's really an enemy in disguise..."

They all stared at each other for a beat, then there was a general scramble for the phone.

Mina, Rei, and Usagi were huddled around the phone, "You've reached the home of Setsuna Meiu. Since you have this number you obviously know me well enough to know I'll get your message when I get to it. Give me the EXACT day and time you called, or you won't get a call back." there was a _beep_ and Usagi sighed and left a quick message about Mega Girl and read off the time that Mina showed off her watch.

Makoto had her cell phone out, "Yeah, we need to ask her about a new magical girl named Mega Girl...no, we don't know her civilian identity...NO, I don't think she's hot!" Makoto huffed, "You haven't seen her? NOT MEGA GIRL, SETSUNA! How long? Three weeks! Well, listen, you should know about this, too..." Makoto briefed the Outers on Usagi's encounter with Mega Girl.

Luna, Artimis, and Ami were grouped around Ami's communicator. "Hello, Senshi. If you've received this message it means you've caught me on a Well Deserved Vacation," they winced as they actually heard the capital letters, "If it's important enough to warrant messing with the time stream, I'll drop in before you can actually leave a message...I'm not there yet? It's not that important, so don't bother with the message. Goodbye." The connection dropped, leaving the exasperated group glaring at the screen.

"You know," mused Artimis, "She's arrogant..."

"And a Lone Wolf..." continued Luna.

"And we don't know much about her and she can be dangerous." finished Ami speculatively.

The thought hung in the air.

!#$&()-+

Ranma walked down the street, a slight smirk gracing his face as he thought back to his most recent battle with Ryoga. The lost boy was actually getting stronger, but they both knew there'd be no defeating Ranma at this point. Juusendo had proven that...

Ranma's smile instantly disappeared. He had nearly lost Akane and was stupid enough to think that everything could go back to normal after. The wedding had shown that the stakes had raised, with Ukyo and Shampoo actually trying to harm Akane, even if it wasn't going to be lethal.

His musings were interrupted when an old lady got him with a hose. The cold sensation was enough to break her out of her funk and bring her back to the present. "Guh..." she grunted, "Can't go an _hour_ these days..."

Just then, she caught site of something that had proved to be alluring to women for centuries. A sight that would instantly break down all resolve in the woman and force her to do things she normally wouldn't. A sight that would drive many women to the point of bankruptcy, disrupting relationships and ruining lives. A sight, indeed, that was capable of inducing violence in all but the _most_ peaceful and tranquil female mind (the author is speaking, of course, of Kasumi and Belldandy, the only two women to qualify in this most exclusive of categories) to fits of violence against their own kind as though their offspring were being threatened with imminent death!

"EEEEEEEE!" squealed Ranma-chan, "SHOE SALE!"

!#$&()-+

Sailor Moon executed a flying kick. Had she not simply let her instincts take over, she would have realized that this was a rather extraordinary (in the old sense of the word, being exceedingly beyond ordinary) for her. Normally she would have simply stayed as far away from the monster as possible and hit it with ranged attacks. Tonight, however, she was feeling good. She was feeling alive! She was feeling like kicking some serious youma butt and tearing them apart with her bare hands.

She was also fighting alone. This was also extraordinary, but not for any unusual reasons. The Senshi had, in the past, had to split up when the youma infestations had escalated to several sightings at once, and indeed she was now on her own fighting a lower-power youma while the other eight Senshi were scattered about the city handling their own fights. They really didn't like doing it this way, as there was more potential for damage and casualties, but sometimes, it just needed to be done.

"Aaaaaand...HYAAA!" Sailor Moon executed a perfect board-breaker punch, essentially splitting the creature in half. Rather than turn to dust like she expected, it burst into spherical lights that faded away.

Her victorious feeling abated a bit by the odd way her opponent destructed, she said, "Huh, that's strange...that looked like what Mega Girl's attack did."

"YOU...!" came a startled cry.

Moon turned to see Mega Girl standing on the next rooftop, "Huh? You again?"

"You stole my victory!" shouted Mega Girl.

"Stole your...you weren't even here!"

"You must be that Sailor Moon hussy I've heard about! Infringing on my territory!"

"_What?_" snapped Sailor Moon, "HUSSY?"

"You won't get away with hindering my mission! PREPARE YOURSELF!" Mega Girl's armor suddenly turned a deep blue and a boxing glove shot out of her arm cannon at Sailor Moon.

"Hey, you crazy chick!" yelled Moon as she dodged the odd weapon, "I'm one of the good guys!"

Mega Girl growled at Moon, "You won't dodge this, HAH!" her armor turned green, and a mechanical snake shot out of her arm cannon. It crawled down the roof, down the building, across the street, up the side of Sailor Moon's building and headed right for Moon.

"AAAAH! SNAKES!" Sailor Moon turned and jumped across the next street to the next roof and heard a quick **puff** behind her. "Huh?" she turned to see the snake had disappeared.

Mega Girl was fuming, "...stupid short lived snake-bots! I'LL GET YOU, SAILOR MOON!" and with that, she leaped away.

Sailor Moon sighed, "First Mia and now this crazy Mega Girl chick. I thought Youma were a handful..."

!#$&()-+

In her garden, Kodachi Kuno sneezed. _Hmmm,_ she thought, _I do hope I'm not developing an allergy, that would so put a crimp in my hobby._

!#$&()-+

The door closed behind Ranma with a gentle click. He stood there with two sacks. Two sacks that he wouldn't have been caught dead holding under any circumstances.

And yet, there he was.

While he stood, doing his best not to think about the contents of the sacks, he mentally reviewed what had happened.

It was crystal clear, he could remember every second. He just couldn't think of any reason WHY it had happened. He, as a girl, had gone charging into a shoe store, went crazy trying on shoes, challenged TSUBASA, of all people, to an all or nothing, loser pays for the winners shoes contest, and promptly won (naturally), resulting in him (then her) leaving the store with a happy expression and about a dozen pairs of shoes.

Ladies shoes.

Some of them were even (shudder) _pink!_

The sacks hit the floor as his hands finally let them go. They had only, really, been holding them because his fingers hadn't yet received the signal that no, they SHOULDN'T be holding the several pieces of unmanly footwear.

He wasn't quite sure when he had been hit with warm water. All he knew was that the spell (or whatever it was) was suddenly broken, and all at once the shock of what he had done clobbered his consciousness like a two-by-four.

All he knew now was that he had to hide them. Hide them until he could somehow lose them. Or bury them. Or burn them! Yes, that sounded good. And it had to happen ten minutes ago, otherwise, someone would catch him. Someone like...

"Hello, dear, what do you have there?"

...his mother.


	6. Proton Reaction

Fission

By HomerNet

Disclaimer: Ranma ½ and Sailor Moon are properties of their respective owners who are not me. This is an original work by the author and any resemblance to the works it derives from is totally intentional and meant as a form of praise and flattery. No money is being made off of this in any way.

Author's Notes: Many apologies for the long delay for this chapter. It was something of a nasty bout of writer's block, coupled with other responsibilities that just sucked away my time. As a reward for your patience, this is an reverb EXTRA LONG CHAPTER/reverb On with the show!

Chapter 5: Proton Reaction

The Antarese class cruiser settled into parking orbit over the world Terra. The captain mused at the odd state of the Moon Kingdom, concerned that repeated hails had gone completely unanswered; no border guard to meet them; even the Regent of Pluto was mysteriously absent. Of course, if rumors held true about the ruler of Pluto, this was nothing unusual in itself, it was just another item that concerned the captain about this particular trip. Their passenger would brook no delays, however, so the expedition continued in it's final legs until they were now parked over the world in what the inhabitants would call the "L5 position," the point where an equilateral triangle could be made if you used the planet, the moon, and the ship as the tips of the triangle.

"Sir," said his communications officer, "Still no contact from Luna." The comm officer had no way of knowing that there was an advisor to the royal family that also had the name of Luna, she was referring to the capital satellite that the Terra's inhabitants called simply, "The Moon."

"Still no contact with the outlying colonies?"

"No sir, no patrols, no hails, it's dead space so far as communications are concerned."

The captain sighed again. When they had crossed the heliopause and hadn't heard from the security patrols of the system, he had wanted to stop the ship and send out an exploratory scout vessel to investigate. Their main passenger, however, had ignored the captain's concerns and so here they were, over the only planet that seemed to have any signals of any kind coming from it whatsoever. The problem was that their most recent information, 1,000 Terran years old at this point, said that Terra was completely off limits to all craft, _including_ The Moon Kingdom's own craft. The only ships that were allowed on Terran soil were the single Terran Royal Craft that was only powerful enough to shuttle a small contingent to and from Luna.

Rubbing his thumb along his mustache, the captain turned away from the screen and faced his communications officer for the first time. "Alright, send someone to get our passenger. He's got to be briefed on the situation."

As the communications officer went about her task, the lieutenant at the helm spoke up. "Sir, I've got a signal. Actually, several!"

"A transmission?" said the captain in surprise. Normally his comm officer would have let him know first...

"No sir, this is one of our magic sensors. I've got confirmation on..._nine_ members of The Moon Kingdom's royal houses. One for every house except Pluto."

"Why weren't we able to sense them before now?"

"Because they're all on Terra, sir."

The captain didn't reply for a moment, running his gloved hand over his salt-and-pepper beard. Finally, he voiced what every member of the crew was thinking since they passed the Pluto/Neptune orbit boundary, "What is going on in this system?"

* * *

Usagi idly nibbled on her fried squid. Absently, she sighed as the seafood turned to mash in her mouth and she swallowed it down. 

"Usagi!" came Mamoru's insistent voice.

"Yah!" Usagi jumped slightly, startled by the interruption to her thoughts. She clamored after and eventually caught her squid-on-a-stick.

Mamoru simply looked on with a loving smirk. "Clumsy meatball-head."

"Hey!" snapped Usagi. She was _not_ in the mood for snarky comments.

The grin dropped from Mamoru's face. "Usa-chan, what's going on? You've been moody all day, and I've been calling your name for five minutes. Your lunch is only a half-hour long, after all."

"Sorry, Mamo-chan," she replied somewhat sulkily, "It's just that Mega-Girl has been bugging me again."

"She showed up again after your meeting yesterday?"

"Yeah, she obviously didn't recognize me while I was Sailor Moon, but she had the nerve to say I was horning in on her territory." Usagi finished with a pout.

Mamoru, ever wise in the ways of this particular blond with ridiculously long pigtails, grinned, "And you have a territory?"

"No," Usagi whined, "It's just...she's so... You'll understand if you ever meet her."

To that, Mamoru could only nod reassuringly.

_

* * *

Great_, thought Ranma, _Just great. Now on top of everything else, I've got to come up with a "secret project."_

Ranma sat in his room on his futon, studiously investigating a rather fetching red pump that he was sure would look stunning on his girl half...were he into that kind of thing...which he wasn't, 'cause he was a _manly_ man.

A manly man who had turned tail and run at the first sign of danger from his mother, leaving her the previous night with a pathetic excuse that a bunch of shoes from a woman's-only boutique would fit, somehow, into a "secret project," and that he had, naturally, been plenty manly in getting them.

The problem was that he really couldn't go to anyone to figure out some reason, ex post facto, to be carrying around a bunch of shoes.

The author would like to point out that, as had been made mention numerous times in the series and barring the obvious discrepancies, such as height and ahem frontal area, Akane and Ranma (in girl form) are pretty interchangeable, clothing-wise, and he could simply have given _Akane_ the shoes and shown his mother how "manly" he was to bring such a bounty to his fiance.

The author would also like to point out that Ranma, when it comes to Akane, has a mental block that is only rivaled in size to the Great Wall. Not the Great Wall of China, the Geller-Huchra Great Wall of Galaxies, a structure that is so immense that even the currently measured 500 million by 300 million by 15 million lightyears figure is just what we can see with our most powerful telescopes.

_Can't go to Nabs,_ thought Ranma, _She'd just blackmail me into giving her more "pictures" to sell. Kasumi...is Kasumi. Not a conniving bone in her body. Mom's clean out, so's Pops. Mr. Tendo's never been a big help, can't talk to Shampoo, she'd just try to get in my pants again...same with Ukyo. Konatsu might help, but his plans are never all that great. Kuno..._ Ranma shuddered, _Definitely out! Can't go to the old ghoul, she wants me to get into Shampoo's pants, that leaves...crap!_

Ranma stood, dropped the shoe back into it's box, and headed out to try and track down the bane of the Anything-Goes School of martial arts.

Ranma just hoped he wouldn't have to go panty-raiding to get help. This time.

* * *

"RAAAAGH!" came the rather fierce bellow from the normally up-beat and chipper Usagi. 

Rei watched in amusement as the rabbit-haired girl stabbed her dumplings with a chopstick. "Let me guess...Mia again?"

"YES!" snarled Usagi, proceeding to use the other chopstick to do nasty and possibly illegal things to the remains of the dumpling, "She chased me around the school FOUR TIMES today! Thank heavens it was _after_ school so I didn't have to be..._inflicted_ with her...person doing bucket duty in the hall!"

This last got Ami's attention, who looked up from her computer. Usagi didn't normally use words like 'inflicted' in normal conversation. "Well...at least you're getting a work...out..." Ami trailed off under the death-glare their nominal leader gave the quiet girl.

"Why don't you just turn into Sailor Moon and kick her butt?" said Makoto.

At this, Usagi deflated. "Oh, man, I _soooo_ want to do just that! But if I do, people might figure out I'm Sailor Moon."

Mina lifted her head from the manga she was reading, "How are you getting away from her, anyway?"

Usagi sighed, "Her suit's battery packs run out after about an hour."

Luna nodded sagely. "Yes, but she lasted longer today than usual. I was watching from outside school grounds and she went for a good hour and fifteen minutes after you left the building. You're doing much better on your endurance runs, by the way." Luna held up under the same glare that Ami received earlier, but it was only Luna's many years of being a court advisor to Queen Serenity that kept her from buckling.

* * *

Ranma stood leaning against a wall. Traffic was light today, which meant, of course, that Happosai would direct his "hoarde" along this street. Ranma really didn't understand _why_ the old freak actually enjoyed a bunch of angry women chasing after him. Sure enough, the sounds of a dozen or so angry women came from down the street, with the undercurrent of a decrepit old man crying in joy, "Watahaul!" 

Ranma rolled his eyes and waited for the inevitable, "Ranma, m'boy, come to help yer old master out?" followed by the dumping of a large amount of lingerie on his person. Right on cue, Happosai unloaded a good portion of "silkie darlings" on him. Ranma sighed and waited for the pain to come.

* * *

Happosai tsked as he looked down at his young protégé amidst the pile of women's undergarments. _Really, the boy is slipping._ How was the part-time girl supposed to get any better if he just let women beat on him like that? Shaking his head, Happi leapt down from the tree he was perched in and poked Ranma in a pressure point to stimulate consciousness. 

The boy's eyes popped open, and a muffled groan escaped his lips, followed by a "yech!" and pulling a pair of obviously used panties out of his mouth. Happosai waited as they boy went through the motions of attempting to clean out his mouth without water. "Well," said Happi as Ranma wound down, "I must say, Ranma, that performance was miserable." Happosai could tell that Ranma wanted to spout one of his usual disrespectful comebacks, but held his tongue. _Hmmm..._thought the old pervert, _This means he wants something._

Ranma swallowed his pride and turned to face the old man. "Listen, I...I need your help."

Happosai's eyebrows shot up his ancient, wrinkled forehead. "I see, I see...and what can this old man do for you?"

"I have, in my room, a bunch of girls shoes. I don't want 'em, but my mom caught me with 'em and now I need to come up with some excuse that sounds 'manly.'"

"Hmmm, yes, or face the displeasure of that sword of hers. Wouldn't do to have my finest student and heir cut down 'cause your mother's worried about your 'gift,' now." Happosai trailed off in thought.

Ranma was practically bug-eyed, "You mean you'll help me? No questions asked?"

"'Course not, m'boy!" said Happosai happily, "I prefer silky darlings, but to each man his own perversion."

Ranma was showing visible signs of anger, "Cool off, boy, I need to think." Happosai pulled one of his ever-handy buckets from nowhere and dumped it on Ranma. He turned to his thoughtful pose again, and so didn't see Ranma suddenly stiffen in obvious discomfort.

"Er, master?" Happosai was suitably surprised at the honorific that he turned to face the boy-turned-girl. "I, uhm, now that you know the...problem, I think I'll leave you to think about it. I've...got something to do!" With that, Ranma ran off, leaving a slightly bewildered Happosai in her wake.

About 15 minutes later, Ranma stumbled into the furo of the Tendo household visibly restraining herself from grabbing at areas that _anybody_, forget "good girls," didn't grab in public. Putting up the privacy sign and slamming the outer and inner doors shut, she stumbled into the tiled room in front of the mirror and began pulling at her clothing. Her pants dropped to her ankles, as well as her boxers, and her shirt hung open as she looked in shock at the mirror. On her breasts was what had to be the downright _prettiest_ bra she thought she'd ever seen, and she'd seen far more bras than she ever wanted to thanks to Happosai and her curse. It was frilly, it was white, it was kind of sparkly, and it fit her perfectly. Around her hips and hugging her groin was a matching pair of frilly, girly _panties_ that also hugged her curves in absolutely the most comfortable way and perfectly matched the bra. After staring at her reflection for a few moments, she began struggling with the bra, "Where's the danged catch?" she hissed. Checking the front and back revealed nothing. Frustrated, she grabbed at the panties, but they seemed to be sewn on, and didn't stretch enough to allow her to remove them. "Oh, no!" Desperately, she tried tearing them, but they seemed to be made of some super-strong fabric, she couldn't even get them to give even a little, and given that she was one of four people that could bend rebar with her bare hands, that was saying something. Visions of being permanently trapped in some sort of otherworldly lingerie flashed through her head. Forget changing back to a guy, the bra would strangle her and she didn't even want to imagine what the panties would do to her...special parts.

In the midst of some rather rapid-fire self-pity, Ranma's danger sense pinged like mad. Not in the usual "get out of harms way NOW!" kind of danger, it was more like the other night, when she knew someone _else_ was in danger.

Suddenly ignoring her new and mysterious garment acquisition, she hastily re-clothed and charged out the door.

* * *

Ami was once again deep in the midst of her Trig homework...actually, she had long since left her trig homework behind and was busy compiling a program she had been inspired to write while working on her Trig homework. This particular program was intended to track all the "planet killer" asteroids in the system to give the Senshi "advanced warning" should one have a collision course with Earth, and also give them a baseline with which to compare any incoming stellar bodies to determine if it were an in-system, known threat, or something that was a significantly larger concern. She had just put the finishing touches on the 403rd line of code when a dialog came up with a warning light. Glancing about to make sure her mother wasn't in the room, then remembering her mother was working late at the hospital again, Ami pulled out her communicator and keyed in the "all call." 

"Luna here," the moon cat was the first to respond. Ami allowed herself a moment of amusement as she heard Usagi whining in the background about Youma interrupting her videogames.

"I've got another Youma signal. This one is in the..." Ami checked the dialog's status, which had brought up a map of Tokyo with two dots, one representing her position, the other representing the Youma signal, "Nerima district!"

"I thought I sensed something," said Luna, "It seemed rather week, so I had dismissed it as being too far away."

"What was too far away?" said Rei as her face appeared on the communicator's screen.

"The youma..." said Ami.

"...alright! But if it's just a meeting reminder you are _sooo_ getting dry food for a week!" Minako's visage interrupted Ami, "Oh, hey, guys!"

Rei rolled her eyes. "We've got another youma?"

Ami nodded as Makoto's face appeared on the screen. She didn't bother waiting for Makoto to speak, as she knew Makoto would likely keep quiet while Ami was talking, "This one is quite a distance away from where they usually show up. It's out in Nerima."

Makoto narrowed her eyes, "That's where the mystery sighting was the other night."

Mina's eyebrows scrunched together, "What mystery sighting?"

"Very close to it, in fact, only a couple blocks away from that location." Ami said in reply to Makoto.

Luna spoke up, "You were able to check on it the other night, can you do so again?"

"No can do," replied Makoto, "I'm on the other side of town. It would take me twice as long as Ami to check on it even at my fastest. How about Mina?"

"No can do," Artemis' white furry face interjected in front of Mina's face on the screen. "We're at the park close to the school."

Artemis' face was suddenly yanked back from the camera as Mina had him by the scruff of the neck. She held him up to look him in the eye, "_What_ mystery sighting?" Artemis proved once again that Moon cats only looked like their earth-born cousins as he shrugged in a way that no feline would ever be able to pull off.

"Who is closest?" interrupted Usagi, now in leadership mode thanks to the introduction of an actual potential crisis.

"Let me check the map," said Ami. Turning to her computer, she brought up the youma-tracking program, by this point heavily modified from what had come on the computer by Ami to be more efficient and reflect the needs of modern day Senshi work, as opposed to the 1,000-years dead Moon Kingdom's idea of an ideal interface. She had just issued the command to show the present locations of all the Senshi, inner and outer, when the blip for the youma disappeared from the screen.

Ami's brow scrunched as she considered what she just saw. A tiny, "_WHAT_ 'mystery sighting'?" came from the communicator, Mina's voice reminding Ami that she had people waiting on her reply. Blinking to clear her thoughts, Ami turned back to the communicator, "Luna, did you notice that?"

"Yes," the mooncat replied, "Very odd, just like the other night."

"Do you think it could be Mega Girl?" opined Makoto, obviously disgusted with the thought that their newest rival might have beaten them to the punch.

"Oh, _god_, I hope not!" snapped Usagi.

"I'm not sure, but it looks like..._I'm_ closest to the disturbance." said Ami.

Usagi was all business again, "Alright, go check it out. See if you can get any more information for us. If it _is_ Mega Girl, we might have to..." Usagi made gagging motions, "Work together with her if she can respond that quickly."

"You need backup, Ami?" said Makoto.

"I shouldn't, as I'm getting no threat indicators, but I'll open a channel once I get there. You monitor it until I'm finished with my investigation of the scene in case something does happen."

"Great!" said Usagi in a bouncy voice, "Call us back when you've got something! I'm gonna get ice cream!"

Rei rolled her eyes and muttered as she closed the connection. "...meatball-head..." was the last thing they heard from her.

"Hey! Don't call me that!" squealed Usagi as Luna hit the disconnect button, causing their faces to disappear.

"You call me the _instant_ you get there." said Makoto, who waited for Ami's nod before signing off.

"_Would someone please tell me WHAT 'mystery sight_blip" Mina's irate voice was cut off as Ami hit the disconnect button on her comm.

Ami pulled her henshin stick out of her subspace pocket, gripped it firmly, and uttered her activation phrase.

* * *

Ranma pulled a pint of ice cream from the freezer. Mournfully, she looked at the remaining stock. In spite of its large size due to three-and-a-half girls in residence, two (one-and-a-half?) of which were martial artists that plowed through calories like freight trains, it was already seriously depleted for the week. Notably absent was the large stock of the "Once-a-month Special" the local ice cream store kept in stock for Tendo/Saotome females of adolescent age or higher that consisted of triple-fudge chocolate with chocolate chips, milk-chocolate drizzle, white-chocolate marbling, dark-chocolate chunks, and a dash of chocolate sprinkles. While this explained the dearth of ice cream, it meant that Ranma wouldn't have a pint to herself today unless she wanted to incur the wrath of the other women in the house. Sighing, she dug a pair of spoons out of a drawer and pulled out a couple of bowls. She dished out the ice cream as evenly as possible, tossed the empty pint container into the trash, and took the bowls out to the dining area. 

Sitting at the table was Kimi, Furinkan's newest student and presently victim of two random monster attacks. Ranma had once again rescued the girl, who was apparently just carrying some groceries home when the monster attacked. The half-time girl martial artists was _not_ on the scene quickly enough to keep the monster from stealing some of Kimi's chi, an action that enraged Ranma to the point she didn't even banter or play with the monster, she just wiped it out. The attack left Kimi in a low state; showing every symptom of having her chi sucked out against her will, up to and including severe depression. Ranma, knowing girls far more intimately than most guys, knew the only way to restore Kimi's spirits was to get her sweets, preferably of the ice cream variety. She unfortunately didn't usually carry cash and Kimi's money was scattered about the pavement near the attack site in the form of now totally ruined groceries. This resulted in Ranma taking the girl to the only source of readily available ice cream that Ranma didn't have to pay for, the Tendo Dojo.

Expressing rather more care than usual for her, she gently placed one bowl in front of Kimi, still a nervous wreck, and sat down on the opposite side of the table, casually taking several bites from her bowl in the process. "Well, I gotta say, you got as bad luck as the tomboy."

Kimi looked up from the wood-grain of the table at Ranma in abject confusion. "Huh?"

"Oh, Akane is always getting herself kidnapped, or abducted, or whatever, and I'm always having to save her." Ranma, focusing more on the conversation and her guest than her food and thus not savoring it as she had two nights ago, finished off her ice cream and tossed the spoon into the bowl. "'Course, she always mallets me for my efforts...stupid macho chick..." he finished in a muttered undertone.

Kimi was staring at the redhead's bowl in shock, "How...you just ate a whole bowl of ice cream in _seconds!_"

It was Ranma's turn to be confused, "Yeah? What about it?"

The pair of girls blinked at each other in confusion for a moment. Deciding she probably wasn't going to get an answer about that particular question, Kimi sighed, picked up her spoon, and dug out a bite of ice cream, "So does this kind of thing happen often in Nerima?"

"What, monsters?" at Kimi's nod, Ranma continued, "Oh, yeah! Although it's been getting bad lately..." Ranma trailed off in thought. _Looks like I'm gonna have to light a fire under Pop's ass to do a cleanup of the area again._ "Don't worry 'bout it, though. There's too many martial artists around for monsters to cause too much of a problem. 'Course, I'm here, an' I'm the best!" Ranma thrust her chest out and put her left hand in a fist on her hip, her right index finger pointing at herself, a cocky grin plastered on her face.

Spoon still in her mouth, Kimi stared for a moment before breaking out in giggles.

"That's better!" said Ranma, "I _told_ you ice cream would help. Those chi-suckers really take the spirit outta ya. Hey, that's funny!" Ranma laughed at her own unintentional joke.

Swallowing her second bite of ice cream, Kimi said, "I don't get it...what's chi?"

Ranma stopped laughing but didn't drop her smile, "Oh, yeah, you wouldn't really know, would you?" Kimi shook her head, "Chi is like...life force. It's what powers your body. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the world together...what's so funny?"

Kimi was now laughing out loud, "You sound like Obi-wan Kenobi!"

Ranma blinked and tilted her head to the side, "Uh...who?"

Kimi gasped, "You don't know who Obi-wan Kenobi is? Haven't you ever seen Star Wars?"

Now Ranma was _really_ confused, "Star _what_?"

"Omigosh, where've you _been_? Star Wars is, like, the biggest movie franchise _ever!_"

"Oh! A movie! Yeah, I never got to see many of those. I was too busy trainin' in martial arts."

Kimi dug out another bite of ice cream, "Is that how you got so good?"

Ranma smiled again, "Yep! Pops always said movies were a waste of a good martial artist's time."

"Well, I don't know about martial arts, but you _have_ to come over to my place sometime to watch it! We just got Episode 3 on DVD, and it's got the most _awesome-est_ special effects! I love the lava fight scene, and Padme's death is just so sad..." Kimi interrupted herself to take another bite of ice cream. Being a much better mannered girl than Ranma, she didn't talk while she was eating.

"Wait, you want _me_ to come over to your place?" Ranma's shock was obvious as her face drained of color, "Yer not afraid of me?"

Kimi paused in her eating, "Why, should I be?"

"Uh, I...well...I'm cursed..." Ranma said limply.

Kimi's eyes lit up in understanding, "Oh, right...I nearly forgot about that. You...turn into a boy?"

"Er, well, actually, I turn into a girl, but only when I'm splashed with cold water. I turn back when I'm splashed with warm water." Ranma sighed. _I was actually enjoying the conversation, damnit! Why'd I have to go and remind her of the curse?_ It looked like another girl was going to think he was just a pervert and start beating on him.

Kimi gazed at her bowl of ice cream contemplatively, still only having consumed about a quarter of it. "Is it..." she started hesitantly, "Is it contagious?"

Ranma was once again shocked, "Say what?"

"Your, ah, curse. Can other people get it from you?"

Ranma's confusion index hit an all time high. She had no idea where the conversation was going, but it wasn't where she had expected it to go. "Oh, no. You _could_ get a curse like mine, but you'd have to go to Jusenkyo."

"Where's that?" asked Kimi.

"In China. It's a magical training ground. Nobody really uses it anymore, 'cept the locals, and idiots like my pop."

"He gave you your curse!" Kimi cried out in alarm.

"Huh? No, well...kinda. He knocked me into the pool that cursed me, but that was only after I'd kicked him into the Spring of Drowned Panda. That's how you get cursed there, by falling into one of the springs."

"Oh..." Kimi continued to eat her ice cream.

"You know," said Ranma, "You're pretty calm 'bout all this."

Kimi giggled, "You saved me from monsters twice in one week, after that, someone with a curse like you have isn't so scary."

Ranma blinked in surprise. "You know, I never thought of it like that."

"So, do you...um, like girls or boys?"

Ranma processed the question for a moment. "Hey, I aint no hentai!"

"Sorry! Sorry! I didn't mean to upset you!" Kimi dropped her spoon on the floor in distress.

Ranma cried out, "Sorrysorrysorry! I didn't mean to scare you!" Ranma waved her hands in a warding action.

They stopped almost at the same time and looked at each other for a moment before Kimi started giggling. Ranma joined her after a moment, and soon they were both laughing out loud.

"Let me get you a new spoon," said Ranma after a couple of moments.

Handing her spoon over with a "Thanks," Kimi continued to smile at the other girl, once again making Ranma nervous. _I hope the tomboy doesn't come in right now_, she thought. Banishing the thought, Ranma quickly retrieved another spoon.

* * *

Sailor Mercury landed with a graceful "tap, tap" of her low heeled shoes touching on the sidewalk. She didn't often get an opportunity to roof-hop during the day, and her analytical mind used the opportunity to observe the difference in traffic patterns from when she did nighttime patrols with the other senshi. 

While Mercury, like Sailor Moon, rarely visited Nerima, she could admire the casual atmosphere that the scene held even in the aftermath of a youma attack. In fact, the people around her barely registered her presence; beyond the casual nod or smile you'd give another stranger on the street.

"Mommy, mommy, look! It's one of the Sailor Senshi!" a young girl, perhaps eight, tugged on her mother's jacket and pointed to Sailor Mercury.

As Mercury smiled at the girl, her mother turned briefly from the business she was conducting with a vendor, glanced at Mercury with an apologetic smile as if to say, 'Children, what can you do?' and said, "That's nice, dear, it's not polite to point." With that, the woman turned back to the vendor and continued to haggle over whatever she was purchasing.

Mercury kept her smile in place as the child gave a quiet, "Gomen," and politely bowed. Mercury bowed back, hiding her surprise at the casual acceptance of her presence in the area.

Once the little girl had moved on to other things, Mercury remembered she had to open a channel to Makoto. She pulled out her communicator and tapped the call button for her friend and teammate.

"Jupiter here. Did you have any problems?" Makoto said as her image came up on the screen.

"No. None at all."

"OK, keep the line open, I'll keep an ear to it."

Mercury nodded and activated her visor, which took over for her communicator as it slid across her eyes. She returned the communicator to it's subspace pocket and glanced around the area. "I don't see the location of the attack...hang on." She approached another vendor. "Excuse me," she said.

The man looked up. "Oh, yes? What can I do for you?" Again, there was that calm acceptance. It was beginning to unnerve the girl who had ironically sought this kind of casual acceptance all her life. As Ami, she would have been shocked if she were even acknowledged. As Sailor Mercury, she was floored by the fact that even though she was a living, breathing superhero, the people of Nerima were treating her like she was just another girl on the street.

"Yes, I was wondering if you had seen an attack from a monster of some sort..."

"Oh, right! Yeah, happened not twenty minutes ago, right over there." The man pointed to a wall that was showing some signs of damage. "Poor girl didn't stand a chance." Ami gasped, and the vendor smiled and waved his hands in a reassuring manner, "Oh, don't worry. She's fine. Looked bad at first, though. The thing had her pinned down and started glowing, then this other girl came along and just cleaned the monster's clock but good."

Sailor Mercury surreptitiously activated the recording function of her visor. "Can you describe this girl? The one who defeated the monster."

"Oh, yeah. Short, I'd say a couple inches shorter than you, red hair...cutest little thing you ever laid eyes on. I'd guess maybe 15 years old, but then when you're my age all you youngsters look like kids." he said with a smile.

Mercury smiled back, "Thank you for your help." she said with a respectful bow.

As she walked over to the site of the attack, Mercury heard Makoto say over the comm link, "Well _that_ was weird. The way he was chatting you'd think he was being questioned by the cops, not the Senshi."

Mercury chose not to reply, instead tapping the controls on her visor to change viewing modes. "Well," she said quietly enough to not be heard by passer-bys, "There's definitely evidence of an attack." she used the rarely accessed function of taking still shots with her visor, rather like a camera, to snap pictures of some cracking of the pavement and a scorch mark. "And a rescue. Hang on, I'm switching to the magical spectrum." Flipping through several different modes on her visor, she stopped when the scene in front of her was coated with a blue fog representing magic detected by her visor. She glanced around, noticing that a few of the residents were showing a low level glow themselves. It was most noticeable amongst the older generation, but wasn't consistent. Running several scanning programs at once, the figures that came up on Mercury's visor confused the girl.

While she had seen similar magic before, and it was almost always benign, she had never observed this quantity of it. Usually, this type of magic, classified by the old Silver Millennium computers as "wild" magic, was in low quantities in random locations, but sometimes congregated around a specific place or thing. Usagi's friend Naru practically reeked of the stuff, which went a long way towards explaining why the poor girl always wound up in the middle of monster attacks.

Nerima and it's citizens, however, were swimming in wild magic. The as Mercury watched, some of the people with higher amounts of wild magic radiating from their bodies left trails behind them. _That explains why there's so much of it just hanging in the air_, thought Mercury, _Someone radiates wild magic, leaves a trail of it, which is crossed by others and is absorbed bit by bit until they start leaving trails of it...incredible!_

"What exactly are we seeing here, Mercury?" came Makoto's voice over the link.

"It appears the area is saturated with magic. This explains the feelings you were having the other night," the blue-haired Senshi continued talking while she fished out her computer, "You couldn't _not_ get magic 'vibes' from Nerima."

"Is it something we need to be worried about?"

Mercury tied her computer in with her visor and began making adjustments to the sensors, "No, I don't think so. This magic is classified as 'benign.' It just can't be properly controlled or used by any party, let alone one of our enemies."

"So this particular magic is harmless?"

"Not necessarily. In certain quantities it can cause events and increase random chaos by a factor proportional to its quantity." As she fiddled with the settings on her visor augmented by the sensors built into the Mercury computer, the fog began to split into different colors, rather like a prism split a beam of light into a rainbow.

"Hey, too many big words. Pretend I'm stupid." Makoto said in exasperation.

Mercury sighed, "The more wild magic there is, the more likely strange stuff will happen."

"Bad strange or good strange?"

"Neither, really." replied Mercury as she noticed a predominant 'frequency' of magic around the attack site, "It'd be like tripping and landing in the mud while wearing your best dress, but finding enough cash buried in the mud to pay for the dry cleaning and a soft drink that you wouldn't have found if you hadn't tripped."

There was a pause as Makoto parsed Mercury's sentence, "You're right, that is strange. What is that?"

This last question was obviously in reference to a patch of magic that intersected with both positively- and negatively-infused chi traces. "I'm not sure, but I can get a good reading on it." Mercury proceeded to record the unique magical signature for later scanning purposes. "This isn't like what you'd find in a youma," explained the senshi to her friend, "I have a feeling this signature belongs to the girl who defeated the youma."

"And the life-energy readings?" Makoto had obviously been paying attention to the readouts on the Mercury visor that were being transmitted with the video feed.

"Well, the negatively-infused chi is obvious, that's what the youma was feeding on. The positive chi...that is most likely our mystery girl's attack. It's too bad we don't have video of this fight, I'd like to see what weapon she uses."

"Well," came Makoto's voice as Mercury folded up her computer and put it away, "If it's anything like what Rei does, I'd start looking at the temples in the area."

Mercury visually scanned the area one last time then leapt to the nearest rooftop. "That is a good idea, but we need to discuss this with the others first."

"Right," said Makoto, "I'll put out the meeting all call. Did you remember to eat anything for lunch, or did you do homework straight through?" Unseen by the visor's cameras, Mercury's face turned a bright shade of red as she began roof hopping. "I'll take your silence as a yes." continued Makoto, "Take a break and get some food, I'll make sure the meeting doesn't start without you. Jupiter out."

Mercury's reply was cut off as the connection went dead. She sighed and began thinking about what she could throw together quickly from her rather sparse fridge. Usually she and her mother just ordered out.

* * *

"...And so there he is, screaming his head off," Ranma pantomimed gripping his head and a overdone panicky look on her face and imitated Soun Tendo's voice, "'Yaaargh, I can feel it inside me!' And all this time Kasumi's just looking at him with that look that says she thinks he's loopy, horns poking out from her head!" 

Kimi's laughter joined Ranma's at that. Her questions about Ranma's curse naturally lead to details of life with the Tendos and everything that had happened since the martial artist had arrived in Nerima. Their jovial banter had finally landed on the incident where the rather pathetic demon that couldn't handle pain had possessed Kasumi, the one person nobody had the heart to inflict any pain on, resulting in dear, sweet Kasumi doing all sorts of generally harmless but very annoying things to the household members while nobody was willing to retaliate because that would hurt Kasumi as well.

"Tadaima." came a light voice from the genkan.

"Hey, speak of the demon." quipped Ranma, "Kasumi, c'mon in here, there's someone you gotta meet!" he called to the front door.

"Be right in." called back the eldest Tendo daughter.

The pair sat in companionable silence while they waited for Kasumi, who came in shortly. "Oh, hello, are you a friend of Ranma's?" queried the young woman.

"Kasumi, this is Kimi, the girl I saved the other night."

"How wonderful! I just met your mother today."

Kimi blinked in surprise, "You...you did?"

"Yes," said Kasumi cheerfully, "Ranma's mother and I went to welcome her to the neighborhood." her face developed a slight frown, "Although I do with Mr. Saotome had come along. He would have been very helpful in explaining Jusenkyo. I don't believe the poor woman understood what we were saying."

Ranma leaned toward Kimi and said, soto-voce, "Which is Kasumi-speak for, 'She didn't believe a word we said about magic.'"

Kasumi would have frowned further, but Kimi giggled in reply. "It's so good to see Ranma make new friends." said Kasumi with a smile. "Are you a martial artist?"

Kimi's reply was interrupted by Akane calling out, "Tadaima" from the foyer. A moment later, the youngest Tendo came into the dining room. "Oh, hello. Kimi, isn't it?" At Kimi's nod, Akane continued, "What brings you here?"

Ranma responded. "Monster attack again. I kicked its butt."

Akane rolled her eyes, "You and your ego..."

The redhead puffed herself up again, "Hey, I am the best, after all."

Adding a headshake and a sigh to her eye roll, Akane said, "Well, I've got some homework to get started on. Let me know when dinner's ready." With that, she headed up the stairs to her room.

* * *

"Red hair? You're sure?" Usagi was being rather insistent. 

"Yes," said Ami as calmly as she could, "The vendor said the girl had red hair. Nothing at all about armor of any type."

Usagi, Rei, and Mina all breathed a sigh of relief. Mega Girl had black hair, which ruled out this new 'champion' being the one person none of the senshi could stand.

"OK, so she's got red hair, she's shorter than Ami, and may be a priestess." Rei summed up the previous half-hour of debriefing.

"Yep." said Makoto. "And I gotta tell you, that Nerima is one strange place."

"You weren't there when I was," said Usagi. "They actually sell magical items. Powerful ones, too."

This brought several concerned glances. "Anything dangerous?" said Makoto.

"Well, there were these love charm fishing rods that worried me, but what could I do, go to the police?"

"Well," came a voice that the untrained ear wouldn't have been able to determine the gender of, "If it's not causing people to become homicidal or fueling some youma, it's low priority, I think."

The group turned to see the Outers at the shrine entrance. Haruka was in the lead, followed closely by Michiru and Hotaru, who was still in her school uniform. Haruka was casually pocketing her sunglasses as she continued. "Is that the reason we were called out here? Some magical charms?"

Rei bristled, but kept quiet as Ami spoke up, "No, and I do agree with your assessment of that particular issue, at least at the present time. As it is the whole area is magic saturated. A love charm might even be considered low-level by the area's residents."

"So what did bring us here?" asked Michiru as she took a seat.

"It sounds like we might have another magical girl hanging around." said Mina.

Rei bopped Mina on the head, "We don't know she's a magical girl!"

"Ow!" groaned Mina.

Hotaru giggled at the display as Ami began the briefing over again.

* * *

Ranma sat in the furo, stripped down to the strange lingerie she had found on her body earlier. She had scrubbed down, running water under the super-strong garments to rinse the suds out so she wouldn't get rashes in incredibly awkward places, and had sat so long contemplating the heated water in the tub for so long she had drip dried. 

She wanted to change back to a guy so very bad it was almost a physical presence. The catch was the undergarments she now wore which she could not remove. Ranma had long since given up on trying to tear, cut, pry, or even burn the garments off. They were incredibly strong and very, very resilient. The chi she had projected at the panties at point blank range hadn't even left a burn mark.

For the first time ever she found herself envying Ryoga's curse that turned the lost boy into a pig. If she was cursed to turn into a pig, she could just splash herself with cool water, crawl away from the offensive garments, jump into the furo, and change back into a human. Of course, if she turned into a pig with cold water, she wouldn't even be sitting there in bra and panties.

The problem was that her chest, not counting her rather substantial bust, was positively reed-thin compared to her male form, which was reaching a very manly proportion as she approached the last leg of puberty. This wasn't like the time Picolette Chardin forced her to wear a metal corset. Not only had she been younger, and therefore her male form not as fully developed in the torso, the corset itself wasn't even sized for a Japanese girl, especially one as small as she was. The bra she now found herself wearing was _perfectly_ fitted to her chest, and would likely crush her to death if it remained after she changed back to her birth form.

Her legs instinctively twitched together as she promptly mentally shot the suspicions of what could happen to her male anatomy with her present panties.

Of course, since the strange clothing had appeared when she changed into a girl, it might just disappear when she changed back into a guy, but that was one heck of a gamble.

Incredibly enough, her thought process was once again interrupted by the same type of danger sense that had interrupted her earlier that day.

* * *

Kasumi was just finishing the dishes when Ranma tore through the dining room on her way to the back door. 

"GottagoKasumiSomeonesintroubledontwaitupbye!"

Kasumi paused, replayed the sentence in her head, and smiled. "Such a nice young man, it's no wonder his mother is so proud of him."

* * *

Ranma's feet pounded across the rooftops of Nerima in the direction she sensed what she strongly suspected at this point to be another monster. Within moments, her fears were confirmed as she stopped at the edge of a roof and looked down to see another abomination attacking an all-night coffee stand. 

"Damnit!" she yelled, "Where the hell are you things _coming_ from?" The monster turned to the direction of her scream, giving Ranma a good view of it in the light cast through the windows of the coffee shop.

Of all the monsters Ranma had fought, up to and including Pantyhose Taro, this one was the most hideous. It looked to stand about seven feet tall, had six arms, and had only a passing resemblance to a humanoid female. It's eyes were red with reptilian slits for pupils, and it's jaws held angry sharp teeth. Fighting back a gag reflex, Ranma leapt down from the building and faced the creature. "All right, you horror flick reject, you're going down right now!"

Ranma charged the creature, bringing up a leg for a flying kick that would have knocked Ryoga for a loop. Instead of recoiling, the monster grabbed Ranma's ankle. Surprised but not caught off guard, she redirected her momentum to her opposing fist, which the monster also caught.

_Now_ she was surprised. Now just attempting to get free, Ranma snapped her free leg forward in effort to stun the creature, but that leg, too, was caught. In short order, the monster had a grip on her other arm, completely incapacitating the martial artist.

Staring eye to eye with the creature, Ranma growled feraly. She almost wished she could bring out the Nekoken, but she was concerned that even that wouldn't defeat this creature. She wasn't overly worried, though. Dying in battle, while not necessarily desirable, was the best death a warrior like her could hope for. It was honorable like that.

Seeing the monster pull it's arm back to strike, she was surprised when, instead of punching, slashing, or piercing with it's claws, it slapped it's open palm against her chest. Instantly, she felt the familiar pull of chi being forcibly sucked from her body. "Oh, no you don't!" she spat, "I got a teacher that tries this on a daily basis!" Instantly, Ranma pulled in all her chi, causing the monster to bellow in rage.

"Ha!" barked the martial artist, "Not so cocky, are...you?" Ranma's hesitation came from the monster slashing at her pants at the crotch. The strange panties held up just fine, naturally, but her pants were totaled. "What are you doing?" she said, apprehension creeping into her voice.

* * *

The author would like to take a moment of the reader's time for a brief education on Youma anatomy. 

Garden-variety youma are magical constructs that are generally designed to appear female to the human eye. The source of this design idea comes down to the age-old practice of creating things in one's own image. Most youma are created by female aliens/sorceresses/etc., therefore most youma look female.

This is not to say that _all_ creatures made in the manner of youma are female in appearance. There are notable exceptions known in Japan (and thanks to truly disturbing exported porn, the world) as the tentacle-rape demon. These are generally created by male aliens/sorcerers/etc., in case you hadn't guessed.

The major reason for the difference in design is aesthetics, not of design but of taste in chi. The chi drained by the female-type youma tends to have only one type of emotion tied to it, such as fear, anger, envy, etc. The tentacle-type youma tend to draw out a multitude of emotions charging the same quantity of chi. While the multi-charged chi is more versatile, it takes more of it to produce the same effects as the single-charged chi, thus creating problems with storage, use, etc. Female aliens, et al, generally dislike the inefficiency of the multi-charged chi and so usually avoid the tentacle-type youma, where male aliens, et al, generally don't care, especially given the ease with which a tentacle-type youma can gather it's charged chi, creating an economy of scale that allows them to not worry about the downsides.

Also, tentacle-type youma tend to target a human's "deep" energy centers, as well as force stimulation of the necessary points to coerce the victims body to generate even more energy than just what is produced by the presence of the youma itself. This, naturally, has it's downside, as a victim that _isn't_ forcibly stimulated can be kept as a sort of living battery for years, provided proper nourishment.

That, and most females find the mechanics of the tentacle-type youma to be rather repugnant.

While different in appearance, methods, and observable mechanics, both types of youma operate on the same basic principle: Generate fear, hate, depression, etc. in a victim, then suck the negatively charged chi from the victim.

Like most designed creations that make it out of the testing stage, the large majority of youma have redundancies built in should their operating methods fail. In the case of youma, they have backup energy collection methods. The tentacle-type youma have limited ability to absorb chi from contact and even short range remote, and the female-type youma...

Let's just say they're not really female.

* * *

Ranma's eyes widened as a pair of tentacles sprang from somewhere on the monster's back. "...no..." she gasped. She had heard of this. Every Japanese teen had heard of this. Any female, even part-time females rightly feared the very thing that was threatening Ranma at this very moment. 

Closing her eyes and clenching her teeth (no _way_ was she allowing one of those in her mouth!), Ranma braced for the impact that would completely shatter whatever notions her subconscious had about her manhood.

Thump

_Huh?_ Thump? Not only was that _not_ the sound she expected, all she felt...down there...was a pressure. No penetration, no real discomfort other than something touching that area that really shouldn't. With some trepidation, she cracked open her eyes and glanced down.

To her surprise and immense relief, the tips of the tentacles (she didn't even want to think of what they looked like) were ineffectually stabbing at the panties, which were stubbornly not yielding in the slightest.

"That's no panty..._that's body armor!"_ she cried out in triumph. "HA_UMPH_!" her bark of laughter cut itself off as she clamped her mouth shut just in time before one of the tentacles could push it's way down her throat.

Just then, the creature seemed to remember it had two more arms. It reached forward, claws extended to attempt to tear off the garment, even if it's prey was damaged in the attempt. Before the claws could make contact, however, the arms fell off at the elbow.

Shrieking in pain, the abomination dropped Ranma and backpedaled. Ranma hit the ground with a thud and glanced around. Embedded in the sidewalk was a pair of shuriken, shaped, oddly enough, like hearts. Looking up in the only direction they could have come from, Ranma saw a female figure highlighted in a single ray of moonlight amidst some air ducts coming from the top of a nearby building. She was wearing what looked like a sleeveless leotard showing off a pair of highly toned legs, tobi boots, bracers, headband, and cloth face mask covering everything from the bridge of her nose down, all in a slate gray color that blended perfectly with the moonlight. On her back was what looked like a strait-bladed sword, though it was sheathed. Her dark hair was cut short, and her eyes were piercing even from the rooftop she was perched on.

"Who...?" uttered Ranma.

"I am the Moonlight Shinobi. Enemies such as this would be better fought from a distance, I think." she pointed at the monster, which had just finished regenerating it's arms and was beginning to regroup. Ranma glanced back up to the rooftops, but the Moonlight Shinobi was gone.

* * *

Mamoru's viewing of the evening news was interrupted, not, for once, by a sense that Usagi, a.k.a. Sailor Moon was in danger, but by him sneezing. Irritably, he grabbed a tissue from the tissue box on his end table.

* * *

"Huh, well, she could'a at least lent me her sword." Ranma groused as she backed away from the monster. 

The youma had managed to return to it's feet and reoriented itself to once again face the martial artist, claws and tentacles poised and ready.

Ramna's lip curled in anger, "You, monster, are an offense against nature. Young women live in fear of creatures like you, and that is about as evil as I can even come close to imagining. In the name of women everywhere, I will punish you!"

* * *

Usagi, preparing for bed and very thankful that her night wasn't being interrupted by another youma sighting all-call, sneezed. 

"Good heavens, Usagi, cover your nose and mouth when you do that!" chided Luna.

* * *

Ranma kicked the remnants of her pants off her ankles. It wasn't like she hadn't worn less in public, after all. About 10 yards away, well outside the range of it's tentacles, the monster proceeded to disintegrate into whatever youma were made of. Ranma was winded, something that only happened these days when she expended too much chi in too short a time. Of course, a multi-armed creature with faster reflexes than herself wasn't an every day occurrence, even in Nerima. It had taken no less than two moko takabishas and seven vacuum blades to defeat the creature, and all this after it had already tried to suck out her chi earlier. 

She paused to catch her breath, not to mention steady herself from the earlier close call, and headed for home, only hopping the lower, single story rooftops.

* * *

Akane's footsteps interrupted Ranma's focus on the teakettle in front of her on the table. The taller girl looked at the redhead quizzically, "What are you doing up?" 

Ranma blushed and began stammering, "I, that is...I couldn't...I wanna change back..."

Akane merely gave Ranma a half-lidded stare. "Never mind, Ranma," she said with a sigh, "It's not important."

Ranma held back a sigh of relief. She _really_ didn't want to be called a pervert just because some mystery lingerie-cum-body armor had appeared on her body the last time she changed into a girl. "So," she said to divert attention from herself, "What'r'you doing up?"

"Oh, I just woke up. I had fallen asleep while studying. I just came down for a glass of water before I went back to bed."

"Ah." grunted Ranma. She went back to contemplating the teakettle. Tiny wisps of steam curled up from the spout as the aquatransexual pondered her next move. Ranma's inability to see what was coming could be contributed entirely to the fact that her day had been unusually busy, even for a Saotome.

That, and the previously mentioned mental block in regards to Akane, of course.

Akane finished her water and put the glass in the sink. Stepping out of the kitchen, she paused as she saw Ranma still sitting and looking mournfully at the teakettle. "Honestly..." she said under her breath. Casually, she grabbed the teakettle's handle and poured it out on Ranma. "Go to bed, Ranma, and stop sulking about your curse." Setting the kettle down, she ignored her fiancé's reaction and headed up the stairs.

Ranma nearly faint...er, passed out again. Realizing he wasn't feeling any ribs splinter or lungs compress, he patted his chest tentatively, then with more vigor. A wave of relief swept over him as he realized the bra and panties had indeed disappeared when he was hit with the hot water. _I wish this curse had come with an instruction manual, or something!_ he thought, _I coulda saved myself a whole lotta grief._

With a satisfied sigh, Ranma stood and headed to the room he shared with his parents.

* * *

Sometime later, a couple rooms away, Nabiki slept the sleep of the not-just-and-certainly-not-innocent-but-highly-profitable. Being a rather hard sleeper, she didn't notice the window open, she didn't hear soft footfalls pad across the carpet, she didn't feel a thing when a weight settled briefly on her bed, and she didn't stir when a quiet, "Mrow." broke the silence that filled the room. 

And when a brass colored object roughly six inches long in the shape of an antique key bearing the Greek symbol for the planet Venus thumped onto the bed right over her breasts, she didn't flutter an eyelid.

Moments later, the window closed, and a slumbering Nabiki was once again alone in her bedroom.


	7. Gamma Burst

Fission

By HomerNet

Disclaimer: Ranma and Sailor Moon are properties of their respective owners who are not me. This is an original work by the author and any resemblance to the works it derives from is totally intentional and meant as a form of praise and flattery. No money is being made off of this in any way.

Author's Notes: This story is confusing the hell outa people...PERFECT!

Chapter 6: Gamma Burst

Ranma stood on the pinnacle of the wasted remains of Beryl's fortress, her Moon Crescent Wand held forth and tears streaming down her face. Her friends were dead, she knew that. One by one, they had sacrificed themselves so she could make it here in a last ditch effort to save the whole of the Earth. _Rei, Ami, Makoto, Minako...this is for you!_ Summoning up every last ounce of power she had, forcing every bit of will in her tiny, teenaged frame into the beam of light that arced between her and the horribly mutated form of the would-be Queen Beryl, she somehow felt that, even though there was no possible way for it to be true, that her friends were by her side.

As Ranma felt the last of her life slip away into the cleansing fire from her wand, she saw Beryl's body fragment, then disintegrate into youma-dust. She collapsed to her knees, then dimly felt her body, still clad in her princess dress, thud against the rock of her lone precipice. As consciousness slipped away, one thought flitted through Ranma's head, _I wish that my friends were still alive, and that everything were normal again..._

She didn't notice as her Ginzuishou began to sparkle...

o0o0o

Ranma snapped awake. Sitting up quickly, he scanned the room he found himself in, he was...home. _It was just a dream,_ he realized. He wasn't totally sure why he dreamt he was a princess from the moon, or why he should know four other girls that were somehow helping him, although he was sure the evil witch queen was symbolic of all the women in his life in some way.

He just prayed his mother never heard of the dream, though. Imagine how unmanly she'd find a white, lacy dress?

o0o0o

Usagi cradled the limp form of his fiancé in his lap. She looked so peaceful, so beautiful... "Why aren't her eyes open?"

Usagi heard Ryoga stepping closer to him. A friendly hand on his shoulder got no response from the sometimes-female martial artist.

"C'mon, ya stupid tomboy..." trailing off, Usagi hit himself in the head. He forced back tears and said, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. I meant to say, you know, thanks. For helping me."

"I know I'm no good at this feelings stuff. I just couldn't tell you how much I love you." he realized that one of the droplets of water on Akane's face wasn't from the dragon spring. Another joined it as Usagi lost the battle with his tears. "C'mon, Akane, get up." There was still no response, "Akane?"

He couldn't even tell if she was breathing.

"AKANE!!!"

o0o0o

Usagi found herself sitting upright in bed, sweat pouring down her face, her heart pounding like a hummingbird was trapped in her chest.

"Usagi?" came the voice of her feline advisor, "Are you all right?"

Realizing she was indeed all right and once again fully FEMALE, the young girl nodded. "Nightmare." she stuttered.

"Must have been," replied Luna, "I haven't heard you shout like that in your sleep since...well, it's been a while." Usagi nodded, knowing exactly _when_ the Moon Cat was talking about. "Was it...Beryl?"

Although the girl's face couldn't really get more ashen, the slightly confused yet pained look was replaced by one of deep emotional ache. "No. No, it wasn't about Beryl."

They sat in silence for a while, Usagi getting her breathing under control, Luna letting her charge recollect herself.

"Usagi?" Luna querried. She waited for the girl to respond with a 'Hmm?' before continuing with, "Who's Akane?"

"I..." Usagi's face returned to the confused and pained look, "I don't know."

o0o0o

Nabiki heard her alarm clock go off and slapped her hand down on the end table. Having missed the clock entirely, the morning tormentor continued to blare at her. Finally opening her eyes with a groan, she turned her head in an economy of motion that reduced energy expenditure to an absolute minimum. Fixing her gaze on the fuzzy blob that was making the noise, she lifted her arm, steered it like a drunkard over the blob, and let it drop. Mercifully, this ended the noise that was piercing her brain at the ungodly hour of..._What time is it, anyway?_

She blinked, rubbed her eyes with the hand not presently on the clock, and squinted in an effort to focus through the foggy blur that persisted whenever she opened her eyes first thing in the morning. _6:00 AM_, she read, _I don't care if the rest of the world gets up at this hour; this is cruel and unusual!_ Sighing, she plopped her head back on her pillow and merciful unconsciousness played tag with her. Her little game with Morpheus was interrupted by Akane's door opening and shutting, indicating her little sister was on her way out for her morning run. Dimly, she realized that the male (or mostly male) Saotome's would soon be awake and sparring _right_ out_side_ her WINDOW! Sighing and biting back the urge to just storm into their room and give them a good preemptive chewing out (for two reasons. One, Mrs. Saotome didn't spar in the morning, so it would be rude to wake her, and two, that was Akane's shtick.), Nabiki reached up to pull the covers off her chest, with the eventual goal of also kicking them off her legs.

It was about that time she realized she had something cool and metallic on her chest. Forgoing the covers for a moment, she grasped the metal item and lifted it to her eyes. _What the...?_ she thought. _Why do I have a key on my chest?_

Suddenly, her morning fog was clearing much, much faster.

o0o0o

Rei sighed, leaning forward slightly on her broom and gazing wistfully in the direction of the school her friends were attending. While she certainly didn't miss the homework, her priestess duties kept her from being in the one place where all her best friends gathered every single day.

Not that she cared for the Meatball Head, certainly not. Little manga thief…

Also, there had been times when she was at the shrine while everyone else was at the school, or she was at her private school her grandpa had arranged for her and her communicator would go off, and she'd have to stay put, unable to protect her friends.

Of course, a certain pony-tailed ditz didn't make things easy on that count…

Sighing once again, she grabbed her broom and began to sweep when she saw something down on the street near the temple gates. She almost didn't think anything of it at first, but then it went by the gates again. The temple wall obstructed most of her view of the street, but what looked like an odd assortment of vehicles was heading down the street…right towards the school.

Hopefully Usagi would be late again and not have to face whatever this was, especially if it was a new threat.

Not that Rei cared about Usagi, of course not.

o0o0o

Nabiki normally ate breakfast with her family. Today, a mystery had presented itself that was so unusual that she felt forgoing the luxury of the early morning soap opera that was Ranma and Akane's relationship was very much worth it. She sat in her room at her desk, her laptop open and in front of her, the mystery key sitting on a piece of paper next to it on the left, her bowl of soup on the right. She picked up the bowl and slurped down a bit of it, not standing on manners since she wasn't at the dinner table. _Let's see...symbol for 'woman'...nothing,_ she moused back to the search box and typed another string, '_Female' 'brass' and 'unlock', no...feminine key...EW!_ Quickly hitting back to remove the offensive and highly pornographic search results from her web browser, she decided to take another tack. _Hmmm...the symbol for 'woman' comes from the ancient Greek goddess Aphrodite,_ she typed in a few keywords and hit 'enter.' _Damn, still nothing! Well, nothing relevant._

Sighing, she sipped at her coffee. "OK," she muttered, "Nothing for 'woman,' or 'Aphrodite' as relates to a brass key..."

Why would someone have dropped a brass key on her bed, and how did they defeat the security measures she had in place, let alone getting into a house of martial artists completely undetected? Sighing, Nabiki gulped down more soup and began to gather some of her schoolbooks and other, less reputable books on wagers and numbers keeping. There was a light tap at her door, followed by Kasumi's gentle voice, "Nabiki, you should be getting ready for school."

Nabiki tensed up. She hadn't told anyone about the key, for some reason she had this incredible desire to keep it's existence secret. "I am, sis. I'll bring my dishes down on the way out, okay?"

"Very well, let me know if you need anything. Your bento will be on the kitchen counter."

"Thanks, sis."

As Kasumi's footfalls faded behind the closed door, Nabiki's eyes fell back on the key again. _Aphrodite, goddess of..._

Sudden inspiration hit and Nabiki and she did another search for 'goddess of love greek.' Aside from one very odd entry for a shrine in a neighboring ward for a _Norse_ goddess of love, nearly every entry except the Wikipedia result came up as "Venus." Gulping down the rest of her coffee and soup almost absently, Nabiki tossed in a search string of, 'venus key.'

While no results came up with anything fitting the description of the key now in her possession, there was a couple of interesting articles from several of the various boards and clubs devoted to the Sailor Senshi. It seemed that one of their members was named 'Sailor Venus' and some theories about their abilities and where they came from. Not having time to do serious study, Nabiki bookmarked the search results and powered down her computer.

Almost as an afterthought, she shoved the brass key in her uniform pocket before leaving her room.

o0o0o

Usagi trudged into the gates leading to her school, not really ready to face the day. She had, for once, managed to get there on time, but at the price of her much-cherished beauty sleep. A couple of her classmates called out greetings, which she returned sleepily. As she was waving to Makoto, who was chatting with the only other tall girl in school, she noticed a girl in school uniform who would have nicely qualified as a member of The Ministry of Silly Walks. She was holding her book bag up to shield her face, making exaggerated 'tip-toe' steps, and occasionally bouncing off a tree as she aimed, only somewhat accurately, toward the front door of the school.

While Usagi's namesake was never very curious, her advisor's earthen counterparts were notorious for it. Disregarding the native lagomorphic tendencies ascribed to her zodiac animal and embracing the propensity Luna rarely practiced but Artemis did with startling regularity, Usagi altered her course and went straight for the strangely stepping girl.

While high school is a time when most people learn to become adults, complete with the acclimation to what some refer to as the 'social contract' of behaving more mature than one really is, there are some people who just never grow out of the child-like tendency of asking questions in a direct manner. Usagi, as you may have guessed, is one of these people.

"What are you doing?" she asked in a straight-forward, non-aggressive manner.

The other girl tensed up for a moment, then thrust her arms to her side, taking the book bag along with them. She faced Usagi and said, "It's no business of yours what I'm doing, Tsukino!"

Usagi's eyes bugged out, "Mia?!"

Mia's face was now turning red, "Yes, it's me."

"What happened to your armor?" fell out of Usagi's mouth. It registered to the part-time magical girl that she had never seen Mia outside of the armor since the girl had transferred in.

Mia started to growl a response, "It...what is that?" she interrupted herself and looked over Usagi's shoulder.

o0o0o

"Sorry, Usa-chan's usually not here on time, just wanted to say hi. Where was I?" Makoto said after waiving at Usagi.

"The American, Paul?" replied Kita.

"Oh, right. Well, he was cute, but he really didn't look all that good. I just don't remember what I saw in him..."

Kita grinned, "You mean other than the fact that he looks 'just like your old sempai?'"

"Hey," snapped Makoto with a smile on her face, "You take that back!" She proceeded to put the other girl in a headlock. They began laughing, until they both saw...

"What is _that?!"_ burst Kita from under Makoto's arm.

o0o0o

"...and I'm like, 'Oh, my _god!'_" said Minako, "And she's like, 'Oh, _my **god**_! And I'm all, 'Totally!'"

The cheerleaders that were gathered around the star volleyball player of the school simply giggled in the way that young girls do the world over as Minako's stunning use of vocabulary resonated with them.

Before Mina could continue, one of the girls pointed in the direction of the school gate and said, "Like, what is _that?_"

o0o0o

Ami was in the library, happily immersed in a book about higher functions of calculus, and so missed the whole thing entirely.

o0o0o

By the time the respective Sailor Senshi's attention had been drawn to the school gates (sans Ami and Rei), the entirety of the school's populous that hadn't yet gone inside stood gawking at a sight that was quite unusual for...well, just about anywhere.

A strange, somewhat futuristic vehicle that resembled a cross between a bus and a shuttlecraft from Star Trek: The Next Generation had pulled into the main courtyard of the school. Not in any sort of proper manner, following any of the proscribed paths, but straight in through the gates and right in the middle of the grassy lawn. Behind that were two smaller vehicles, rather like motorcycles but completely covered and with rather large cannon-style weapons on the sides, both bearing banners with a strange assortment of symbols that none of the students could really read. Behind them was a more platform like vehicle, with a large stage-like surface in front of the main cabin, which was actually positioned toward the back of the vehicle. Behind _that_ was another vehicle, and another, and so on stretching for pretty much as far as anyone could see, all of them looking in some form or another very much like something one would find in a sci-fi series.

As the strange procession pulled into a parking position, a man in some sort of uniform hopped out of the lead vehicle and climbed up onto the platform vehicle. He slowly, seemingly reluctantly, grabbed a device from a compartment near the cab of the vehicle and shuffled out to the center of the platform. Sighing, he activated the device, which proved to be a microphone as feedback shot through the ears of everyone in the courtyard. It quickly died down, and the man began to speak.

"Sorry, that was unintentional. Atmospheric changes and all that. I…" he leaned away from the microphone and toward the lead vehicle, which had the head of another man sticking out of the driver's side door. While only those closest to the vehicles could hear what the driver was saying, the microphone was still on, so everybody heard, if somewhat faintly, the speaker's half of the conversation, "Listen, this is stupid…yes, I know it's orders, but the speech is ancient…it's downright archaic and you know it!" he waved vigorously in negation of whatever the driver said in response, "OK fine, whatever." He sighed and put the microphone back up to his mouth. "I bring the Court of the Moon Kingdom a message from the Mighty and Majestic Realms of the Riginium Empire, all hail the Emperor, may he continue to rule for time and all eternity. The message from the Emperor is this; We bring you greetings and good wishes, Queen Serenity of the Moon Kingdom. We wish to formalize the arrangements between our two states using the Anciente and Noble Practice of joining our two houses through matrimony."

At the mention of "Moon Kingdom," three faces in the courtyard went totally white, and they all thought at once, _Oh, please don't mention Senshi!_

As for the rest of the people, students and teachers alike, they were suddenly abuzz with newfound rumor. Some Emperor, from some far off country, wanted his child to marry someone from _their_ school! They had royalty attending and didn't even know it! Suddenly the sight was less an oddity and more like entertainment.

The speaker continued, "And so, We present the heir to the Empire, the…" the speaker fought to keep revulsion from showing on his face, "The seed of Our loins, the hope and crowning jewel of all Our peoples, the Lord Prince Xavier Ba'heedan the Magnificent, the First."

As the speaker turn on his heal and fled the stage as quickly as possible, trumpets began to sound, or a very acoustically advanced sound system began to sound, there wasn't a single square inch of brass in sight. The next vehicle in line, the one behind the stage, trundled forward. It looked like a sort of futuristic mini-bus, but with tank-like treads instead of wheels. The front split open with a hiss and voluminous amounts of steam as the music blared to a crescendo and a ramp lowered down to the grass. As the vapor cleared, a teenaged boy could be seen walking down the ramp.

Older women would have called him handsome. Younger women would have called him hot. Teenage girls would have called him (and were calling him) bishonen. Men would bowed to him, boys would have glared at him in jealousy. He was good looking. Every single girl on the lawn was suddenly love-struck. They knew that no matter what guy came along, his looks would always be a distant second to this paragon of masculinity. Calmly, casually, he descended the ramp. He held up a small device, panned it across the crowd, looked up and nodded in satisfaction, then clipped it to his belt. Then he walked. Girls began to swoon as their fantasies suddenly took them away to a thousand private islands with the gorgeous hunk passing through their midst.

Usagi was frozen in panic. She didn't know who the Riginium Empire was, she didn't care. She _did_ know that as long as she, her friends, her family, and her school hoped to have a chance in hell of never being the direct recipients of a youma attack, their identities COULD NOT be revealed as Sailor Senshi. And here was this guy, who not only knew about the Silver Millennium, but had referred to her ancient mother by name, and was talking about some 'matrimony' thing that her brain was giving her all sorts of alarms for but she couldn't quite figure out why, and looked like he was headed straight for…

"Ah," he began in a silky smooth voice, "You would no doubt be Princess Serenity. Yes, you look just like your pictures. I am surprised to find you here, of all places, but no matter." He reached out, took her hand, and kissed the back in a gentlemanly manner. What girls watching the scene that weren't smoldering with jealousy sighed heavily, a couple even fainting. "I am Prince Xavier. I look forward to a long and joyous betrothal."

…her. _Crap!_ "Uh…" she began to stammer, "That's nice and all, but I think you're mistake…WAIT A MINUTE, BETROTHAL? MATRIMONY?"

The prince was obviously surprised, "Why, of course. Did your mother not explain these things to you? It has certainly been long enough…"

"MY MOM DID NO SUCH THING! MY MOM _LIKES_ MY BOYFRIEND! I…" it suddenly occurred to Usagi that he wasn't talking about _her_ Mom, the one who made her bunny shaped pancakes, but her _Mom_, the one who'd been dead for a thousand plus years.

The prince took her sudden stop as an opportunity to speak, "Oh, is Queen Serenity here? We didn't detect her when we came…"

Suddenly, a technique came to Usagi, one that was perfect for dealing with just this sort of situation. It was cunning, it would be unexpected, and it would win her at least enough time to find her friends, who had _conveniently_ disappeared, and it would remove her from the presence of Mia, who was looking _far_ too smug. She didn't know _where_ she came up with the idea, but she made a mental note to thank whoever gave it to her.

"TSUKINO SECRET TECHNIQUE!!!"

Prince Xavier stood blinking at the spot where Usagi used to be just a moment prior. "Hmph!" he sniffed, "That was hardly proper."

o0o0o

Nabiki sat casually, one hand in her pocket under the desk, idly turning the key while her lieutenants briefed her on their respective spheres of influence. She was running mostly on automatic, the mystery of the key consuming a good portion of her thoughts. She still hadn't revealed it to anyone, but she had an idea on how she might get more information.

"OK," she said as the last girl spoke, "It sounds like business as usual. For now I'd like to keep it that way." As a few girls groaned, she spoke up, "Hey, not only could the school use a break, but I think we all deserve some downtime unless there's a special project." The group reluctantly acknowledged Nabiki's decision, having grown rather accustomed to the rather steady influx of money that the general chaos they stirred up could provide.

The other girls had already started gathering their books. "Junko," the older girl looked up, "You follow the Sailor Senshi pretty closely, right?"

Junko blushed slightly as the other girls began teasing her. It was rather well known among Nabiki's lieutenants that Junko was a closet Sailor Moon fangirl. "Yeah, I do..."

"Great, hang out for a bit, would you? I've got some questions about them, my little sister's birthday is coming up soon, I want to make sure I get her something nice." This wasn't a total fabrication. Akane's birthday _was_ coming up soon, and she _did_ have a good sized collection of Sailor Senshi manga and other assorted materials, but that wasn't the point of Nabiki's query.

Once the others got out of earshot, Nabiki leaned forward. "So," began Nabiki, "What can you tell me about the blond girl? The one that's not Sailor Moon, that's Mars, right?"

Junko giggled, "Nope, wrong on that count boss! Sailor Mars has black hair. It's Sailor Venus that has the blond hair."

Nabiki knew that from her brief research that morning, but holding one's cards close to the chest was all important in information gathering. "Right, I don't pay much attention to them myself, this is for Akane, you understand."

"Sure thing, boss! Sailor Venus is the Senshi of Love, and she can kick some real butt too!" she scrambled in her bookbag for a moment and pulled out a magazine called Senshi Beat. She took a moment to flip open to a page, then pushed the magazine over to Nabiki, "See? That's a photo spread someone did of Sailor Venus last month." Indeed, it showed the fetching blond not just in a press conference, but also doing a bit of posing and even a few shots of her in active battle. Nabiki recognized that the girl had a little fighting skill, but only street brawler ability magnified by whatever powered her Senshi abilities. Nabiki didn't grow up in a martial artist's home for nothing, and she had retained her ability to gauge the fighting form, if for no other reason than to be able to set odds in a wager.

"That's great!" Nabiki said with false enthusiasm, "Do you mind if I borrow this?" she said, already slipping the magazine into her bag.

"Oh, sure," said Junko, "The next issue is coming out this afternoon anyway."

"Thanks, Junko." said Nabiki as she stood, "Talk to you later."

o0o0o

Ami was casting confused glances to the other students in the hall. When she had left the library at the appropriate time to go to class, the halls were mostly empty, but they filled up quickly and with a greater amount of chatter than usual. Not one to pay much attention to that sort of thing, she generally tuned it out. The first mention of, "Moon Kingdom" was enough to cause her to stumble, but most people ignored the nerdy girl when she stumbled. She began listening closer, but the reports weren't making much sense. Something about a prince and a bunch of strange cars and trucks and a few mentions of a funny man on a stage all blended together in a very confused jumble of references that Ami couldn't make heads or tails of.

Being more focused on attempting to cobble all these various thoughts together, she was taken by surprise when a hand reached out from the girl's bathroom and yanked her in. Her startled yelp was cut off when she saw Usagi's face.

"Usagi, don't do that! You frightened me!"

Usagi ignored Ami's statement, "Is he out there?"

Ami's bewilderment simply increased. "Is _who_ out there?"

Now Usagi looked confused, "You know..._him!_"

Ami simply glared at Usagi, "Is this one of those conversations where I should find Mina to translate through Makoto?"

"Grrr!" Usagi actually growled, "Lousy traitors! They just disappeared..."

Ami grabbed Usagi's shoulders and shook her, "Usagi! Make some sense!"

The blond blinked at Ami, "Didn't you see what happened in the courtyard?"

Ami thought back to the very little she had glimpsed of the usual morning crowd on her way to the library. "When, exactly, was I supposed to see anything?"

Just then, the bell rang. "Aaah! I'm going to be late!" Usagi yelped. She charged out the bathroom door, leaving a very confused Ami behind.

o0o0o

Nabiki was putting her books away to head out to lunch. Sure, she didn't have anyone to meet today, given that she'd dismissed all her lieutenants before morning study hall, but she didn't really like sitting in a closed classroom when the entire lunch hour was available for her to enjoy the lawns and courtyards of the school, one of the few things that their pineapple-for-brains principle had done well and in a pleasing way. Perhaps there was something of good report in that be-cursed island Kocho Kuno always rambled on about.

Besides, it got her away from Tatewaki Kuno for a while.

This led to her enjoying her noon repast beneath a rather well tended shade tree as a light breeze cooled her face. She realized that she just hadn't had the time lately to just enjoy pleasant lunches anymore. Perhaps she should find a way to do her usual lunchtime business in another way, or maybe delegate a bit more. It was her final year of high-school, about time to find a local replacement anyway, someone she could hand the reigns of her rather well established little high school empire...for a 15 per annum partial ownership fee, of course.

Nabiki's pleasant thoughts were interrupted by a shadow crossing over her. She looked up to see an older boy, very likely a 19 year old, standing in her sunlight. "Is there something I can do for you?" she said slightly frostily. Her lunchtime was going so well...

"Ah, Nabiki. Still as cool as ever. I have a business proposition for you."

Nabiki furled her brow. She was hoping to dedicate time to the mystery key, not business. Still, business is business... "Before I deal with you, I really must know who you are."

"I graduated from this school at the end of last term. I heard quite a bit about your exploits before I did so, however, and I know you will be interested in what I have to offer."

Nabiki noticed he didn't actually answer her question, but decided to play his game. "I see, so what did you have in mind?"

"I have come to learn of a shipment that went astray," began the young man, "The company that was supposed to take ownership went bankrupt, and so the shipment is simply sitting in a warehouse."

The cash register bells in Nabiki's head overrode the alarm bells briefly. "What's the shipment?"

"I can't say that here, the materials in question are in rather high demand."

"OK," said Nabiki, "Why come to me?" She had dealt with mystery shipments before, including finding some rather well placed recipients that were very...generous to her for her efforts, but this mystery former student wasn't like any of her previous contacts, who she was very familiar with.

"Quite simply," said the stranger, "My associates wanted to avoid the more...heavily monitored sources of contacts. Your name happened to come up, and I knew how to contact you."

_Curious_, thought Nabiki, "I assume you want me to meet your contacts somewhere?"

The man simply nodded and relayed the location of a warehouse nearby.

"Fine, I have school to finish, I'll meet your associates later on, say, five o'clock?"

"Very well, I shall tell them to expect your arrival."

o0o0o

Ranma lay stretched out under a tree on the other side of the school. He had his bento napkin spread out over his eyes, his hands behind his head, and one ankle resting on the other knee, lightly dozing.

Akane looked up from her English homework, "It's rather quiet today, isn't it?" she observed.

Ukyo scratched down an answer for her math homework, "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, sugar. I'm getting more work done today than I usually get done in a week."

Ranma merely grunted in agreement.

o0o0o

Ami was growing increasingly frustrated by the chatter going on around her. AP English was supposed to be one of her few refuges in the school from the constant chattering and nattering of the rumor crowd, yet today's favorite topic, the mysterious happenings that she had somehow completely missed that morning, was being endlessly debated by the others in her class.

"I just haven't ever heard of any 'Riginium Empire,' even anciently."

She now had a choice to make. Did she swallow her pride and show all the other geeks in her class that she out-geeked them by several orders of magnitude and thereby alienate _yet another_ social group, or keep silent and have the unsolved mystery of just what the hell everyone was talking about plague her waking moments?

"Maybe they just changed the name of an older country? It's happened before, especially with revolutions..."

She at least had a better idea of what had happened based on the conversation. Apparently, some prince had walked onto school grounds with great fanfare and proposed to another student, one the other intellectuals in her class didn't like to much.

"That isn't the case here, if we can rely on the lackey's comments on the microphone. The speech he gave is apparently a very old one."

Her increased knowledge was obviously still not giving her the whole story. Why would Usagi have acted the way she did before class?

"I still say it's a hoax. After all, even if the Riginium Empire is real, the Moon Kingdom is obviously not."

Ami stiffened in her seat, her eyes suddenly as big as saucers. She had just added 2 and 2 and gotten 48. Without a word, she scrambled all of her supplies, papers, and books together, threw them into her bag, and ran out the door.

The rest of the class sat in stunned silence for a moment, including the teacher.

Ami poked her head back into the room, "Sorry, sensei. I...uh...need to do some research on...a sociology project." She was gone again before the stunned sensei could merely nod.

o0o0o

Usagi was doing her best effort to hide under her desk without actually leaving her chair. Pretty much the instant she had stepped into her classroom, her classmates were pestering her with questions, asking who the mysterious stranger was, and (the teenager rumor mill being what it was) whether she had gotten "romantic" with him or not, all conveniently ignoring her initial reaction and current vehement denials.

Just as she was about to burst into tears, two things happened.

The first and most welcome was Ami bursting through the doors and breaking very quickly into an impromptu speech in a vain attempt to get the teacher to let Usagi out of class for a bit. It was a vain attempt _not_ due to the usual and expected reasons that no, other students could not just haul students out of class for poor excuses and Usagi's grades were slumping..._again_, but due to the second thing that happened.

Said second thing was presently swaying, for such a paragon of masculinity did not _dangle_ or _hang_, on a well crafted tether, his foot through a loop at the end of the tether and one hand gripping the tether at shoulder height. Said tether was swaying just outside Usagi's classroom window, and a low humming noise could be heard, indicating the presence of some sort of craft holding the tether aloft. Every girl in the class was instantly up against the windows in effort to get a better look and (perhaps, just _maybe_) get their object of amore's attention. Even Ms. Haruna was stunned speechless.

"Fairest princess, I was hoping to...oh, dear..." the combined females of the class were devastated by the disappointed look on Prince Xavier's face. They turned to look to see what had upset their paragon of manliness, only to see Usagi's empty desk and the door to the classroom closing.

o0o0o

Nabiki sat in study hall, quietly soaking up information she considered vital. Said information had nothing to do with math, or science, or any of the other many subjects taught at the school, but more to do with the subject of the key still residing in her pocket. She was carefully paging through the copy of Senshi Beat she had received from Junko, earmarking pages with mentions of Sailor Venus. The teacher in charge had _almost_ threatened to take the magazine away from Nabiki, but the mercenary girl had merely glared menacingly at the man, who quickly backed down without saying a word. Nabiki went back to her magazine with a secretive smile, making a mental note to give a bonus to whoever had dirt on the man. Or just give a bonus to whoever could dig up the dirt.

During the course of her research, she had learned what little Sailor Venus' fans could dig up. There was a strong suspicion that Sailor Venus was also Sailor V, who's crowning achievement was crushing The Syndicate, a crime organization in Europe with suspected ties to the occult. Since Sailor Venus' surfacing in Japan, Sailor V had simply vanished, and their costumes were remarkably similar, based on the few crime artist's sketches that existed from Sailor V's assault on crime and the photos taken since the first youma invasion four years ago. Nabiki had to admit that with the evidence at hand, it was quite likely true. Of course, rumors that Sailor V was still operating in Europe kept the crime activity low, so neither Interpol nor the Senshi were eager to make the connection.

Nabiki paused in her perusal of the magazine and stared hard at one of the images of Sailor Venus. Some fool cameraman with a death wish had gotten close enough to a battle between Sailor Venus and a youma as Venus was using one of her special attacks. The cameraman had to have been one of the pros, as the picture quality was high enough to clearly show each link in the chain Venus was summoning, the last link was actually in the process of forming from whatever the Senshi used to make their attacks. (Nabiki doubted it was Qi, they just didn't seem to be that good as martial artists) The chain wasn't what caught her interest. What she focused on instead was just above the Senshi's hands, hovering in space near Venus' ear.

It was a symbol, made of light, probably five inches across and six inches high. It somewhat resembled an ankh, though the bottom leg was straight down, and the top loop was shaped like a circle.

It exactly matched the symbol on her key.

o0o0o

The library was a place of studious learning. A place where the willing student could go and find portals to the unknown, adventures from long ago, knowledge never seen by minds so young in the history of the world. School libraries represent the greatest achievements of mankind from the earliest dawn of the species, condensed down to several thousand tomes and written in such a way that anyone of average intelligence or higher could, with a few hours of concentrated effort, gain insight into the secrets of the universe.

Consequently, it was the ideal place for Usagi to hide from her teachers and fellow students with inquiring minds, as it was the _last_ place the bunny-haired girl would be caught dead in. She just wished she'd thought of it sooner. Or thought of it at all, as it was Ami who had dragged her into the library.

Usagi was presently fidgeting with her pencil case, trying to keep from making too much noise and getting them kicked out of the library. She had finally landed on a game of "balance the pencil," wherein she displayed some decidedly un-Usagi-like, totally **not** clumsy behavior of balancing four pencils, two pens, an eraser, a pencil sharpener, and two paperclips on all ten of her fingers, when Ami said, "Ah-ha!" in a definitive tone. This startled Usagi, who promptly dropped all ten implements, making a clattering noise that earned her a sharp glare from Ami. This was fine with Usagi, as Ami hadn't taken her eyes off her computer screen since they had sat down.

Ami dismissed her irritation with her Princess and turned her computer to face Usagi. "This is what I've been looking for."

Usagi felt her brain seize up at the screenfull of legalese. "Uh..."

Ami had apparently anticipated Usagi's lack of comprehension and continued speaking without a beat, "It's a treaty. More specifically it's a contract." Ami turned the computer back around, her eyes flitting over the text as she re-read the salient parts. "The contract is a mutual peace accord, where the Riginium Empire and the Moon Kingdom, who apparently shared a border when we had a functional space fleet..."

"We had a space fleet? Like with X-wing fighters and stuff?"

Ami rolled her eyes, "You watch too much science fiction. There's no such thing as an X-wing fighter." Ami ignored the disappointed look on Usagi's face and continued, "The peace accord says that the two kingdoms are to exist side by side, neither making any moves into the other's space without permission, so long as both sides remain loyal to the contract."

Usagi's brow furrowed, "So what does that have to do with this prince?"

"I'm getting to that," Ami said, "Apparently, it's traditional in the Riginium Empire to include in all treaties with other nations a clause that the Champion Prince of the Riginium Empire, who upon defeating all challengers on their home planet should..."

Ami never got to finish her sentence, because just then the library doors burst open. Framed in the doorway was Makoto and Minako, looking a bit henpecked. "Usagi!" Makoto burst out.

"No shouting in the library!" snapped the librarian, who had immediately come running when she heard the door open.

"No time for that now!" said Mina, "We've got a situation!"

Usagi stood up indignantly, "You...you guys just LEFT me out there!"

Makoto rushed to Usagi's side, "Yeah, sorry, I kinda panicked..."

"Me too!" interjected Mina.

"...but we've got to get you out of here! That prince guy has got some sort of device that he's using to track you. Right now the hall monitors've got him stopped at the end of the hallway..."

With that statement, all earlier infractions were forgotten. Usagi clung to Makoto's arm, "Get me out of here! Hide me!"

"Uhm..." began Ami, "If you'd just sit down with him..."

"That's why we're here." said Mina, plowing right over Ami's words, "I've got the cheerleading squad on standby outside the gates. They volunteered to provide a distraction while we get you home."

Ami spoke up again, "We really don't need to do this..."

"Great!" said Usagi, completely ignoring Ami as she raced for the door, "Let's get out of here!"

Makoto and Minako moved like a coordinated pair of guardians, which is technically what they were, and ushered Usagi out of the library and out of sight. As the doors clapped shut, a slightly frazzled Ami held her gaze forlornly on the spot she had last seen her friends. "...you all really need to hear about the rest of this contract..." she said to the air.

The librarian blinked at Ami, then at the doors. She sighed, muttered something about disrespectful students, and went back to her reshelving duties.

o0o0o

Nabiki stepped out of the school gates to find the mystery man waiting for her. "I hope this doesn't take too long," said Nabiki, "I don't want to miss my sister Akane's cooking."

"Ah, yes. That would be a shame, now, wouldn't it." replied the man.

_Damn!_ thought Nabiki, _I'd hoped he'd say something definitive._ It was a rather obvious bait to anyone who knew of Akane's cooking, and even in her first year of Home Ec. class was infamous for the culinary disasters that she produced. _I guess I'll have to find some other line of questioning. I __know this guy wasn't in Furinkan last year, but I can't prove it without more information._ Nabiki hid her frustration as she began walking next to the man.

Some time later, with Nabiki attempting several different lines of questioning to try and pull some tidbit about the enigma she was following and getting nowhere except further away from home, they arrived at the entrance to a warehouse building. It was now late enough that the sun was beginning to set. The windows, what few she could see, were dark. She glanced questioningly at her guide. "We keep them covered from the inside," he said, "This particular shipment is rather valuable, after all."

Nabiki simply nodded speculatively as he opened the door for her. Keeping her composure took quite a bit of effort, as some sixth sense was screaming at her that this situation was extremely bad news.

o0o0o

"No, she won't be doing an interview," said Makoto into the phone. There was a pause as she listened to the voice on the other end of the conversation, then, "I don't care if you're from Asahi Shimbun, you're not gonna interview her!" she slammed down the phone. Before she could even take her hand off it, it rang again. Makoto lifted the receiver, quickly tapped the switch hook, checked to make sure the dial tone came on, then set the phone on the table, leaving it off the hook. She sighed and walked over to the front door to help Minako.

"Listen," said Minako, "I understand you've got questions, we all do, but we really don't know anything about this prince character and what he's doing in Juuban looking for our friend."

"But if we could just ask her directly..." asked a student with a badge pinned to his uniform shirt that said, 'Student paper.'

Makoto gently pushed Minako aside, "Are you hearing impaired?" growled the tall brunette, "She aint talkin', not now, not later, not ever!" She used her height and every ounce of intimidation she could summon to loom over the student reporter. "Don't you have somewhere to be?"

The boy, knees knocking, nodded, babbled something in agreement, and took off running.

Luna watched it all from the stairs, "My goodness," she said under her breath to Usagi, "What caused all this?"

Usagi sulked in her bedroom doorway, feeling like a prisoner in her own house. "Some prince showed up today. He knew about the Moon Kingdom and everything."

"A prince?" restated Luna in confusion.

Usagi nodded. "Some sort of empire. 'Rejonium' or something like that." Unseen by Luna, Usagi began absentmindedly flipping a coin through her fingers, once again casually displaying a level of dexterity the Moon Princess had never before possessed.

Luna blinked, looked back to Usagi from her vantage point at the top of the stairs, "Riginium?" she clarified. At Usagi's nod, she gasped, "Good heavens! I didn't even know the Empire still existed!"

Usagi, having her attention distracted again, dropped the coin clumsily, "You know about these people?"

"Oh, yes," said Luna, "It's a bit hazy..." they both shared an annoyed look, as Luna's and Artimis' swiss cheese memories were a continual bane to the Sailor Senshi, "But they were a neighboring kingdom. Very warrior-like, always issuing challenges and taking it as a personal affront if you didn't accept."

"They're barbarians?!" gaped Usagi.

"No, no," said Luna, "They were very well bred, with great knowledge of science and history being a large part of their education, along with training. No, it's more like the old dueling code here on Earth. A sort of 'gentleman's duel' to determine honor. To turn down a dual was considered a tremendous insult that could result in wars if the participants were in the right families."

"Great!" said Usagi, "And now I've got their prince wanting to marry me!"

Luna blinked at Usagi for a moment, then shouted, "WHAT?!"

Unfortunately, Ikoku Tsukino, Usagi's Earthly mother, came through the door at that moment, "I'm home from shopping! Oh, hello girls." she said with a smile as she saw Makoto and Minako. Usagi rolled her eyes and shrugged at Luna, who couldn't talk now without blowing her cover in front of Usagi's mom. The younger Tsukino padded down the stairs and said, "Hi, mom!"

As Ikoku went into the kitchen, Makoto automatically following to help put away the shopping, she said, "I had the most interesting encounter today. A small gaggle of girls came up to me and asked if I had betrothed you to a prince!"

Usagi, Makoto, and Minako plastered smiles on their faces, cringing inside as they forced out a giggle to join Usagi's mom in her laughter.

o0o0o

Nabiki followed her guide to the center of the warehouse, her hand in her pocket and firmly gripping the key bearing the Venus emblem. Not that it would provide a whole lot of protection, but a poke in the eye with a large brass key would have to hurt enough for her to get out of a bad situation if it came down to it. "So when do your associates arrive?" said Nabiki.

"They should be here right about..." they heard a door open on the other side of the warehouse and some male voices floated over to them. Nabiki struggled to see the newcomers through the dark of the warehouse. She saw them as mere shadows as they approached, but she could hear them as they came further in.

"...I just want to get this over with. I don't like dealing with unknowns."

Reasonable, Nabiki thought. One does not become a successful business person without wanting to know all the facts.

"Listen, the boss says that this guy can deliver, and you've seen him in action. You want to tell the boss he's wrong?"

Finally, the two newcomers stepped into the light of the single bulb that was lit in the warehouse. The both wore long sleeved shirts with high collars, clean, pressed pants and sport coats, and seemingly matching ties. Nabiki's eyes narrowed in suspicion. Sure, they could be just well dressed businessmen, but they could also be well dressed thugs.

The first voice, the man on the right, didn't answer his collegues question but turned to face the mystery man that brought Nabiki. "This kid is the one we're waiting for?"

The man nodded, and the other two men simply nodded and backed away. The alarm bells were suddenly screaming at her, and one thought began to echo in her mind. It was odd, as she had never heard the particular phrase before in her life.

The mystery man turned to face her as the shadows seem to darken around him, "You have succumbed to your greed. The path to your destruction has been chosen." His form seemed to twist, his clothes shredded as his skin took on a monstrous color. The man...no, the youma (for Nabiki had now recognized what she was facing) began to grow and shift, it's torso stretching obscenely into a twisted mockery of the female form. It's arms bulked up, shadowy tattoos slithering across the skin of it's arms until it resembled a dark parody of Yakuza markings. It's face stretched into something resembling a lizard, and it's tongue flicked own, showing that it was silvery and forked.

Nabiki had already began to step backward, trying to keep her eye on the creature and evacuate at the same time. The two men, she noticed, did not make a move to assist her or the youma, but neither did they act surprised. The creature took a lumbering step toward her on cloven-hooves and hissed at her. With that, Nabiki turned on her heal and ran, hoping to make it to the doorway and out onto the streets of Nerima, where some over-powered martial artist was bound to be wandering by.

She didn't make it two steps before a massive, clawed hand slammed her against some nearby crates, pinning her face first.

o0o0o

Sailor Moon ran like a woman possessed, anger etched all over her face. Jupiter and Venus kept pace a few steps behind, keeping a concerned eye on their leader as they leaped from rooftop to rooftop.

When it was just her mom asking questions, Usagi could laugh at the whole thing and almost pretend the whole bad day had been some sort of silly story she and her friends had made up. When the first reporter, followed by another inquisitive group of girls, showed up at the door, it went from silly to irritating. When Mrs. Tsukino noticed the phone was off the hook and placed it back on the cradle before Makoto could warn her off, it went from irritation to nightmare as the phone once again started ringing with call after inquiring call from newspapers, TV stations, friends, associates, dubious relations, relatives, and even a few wedding planners who all wanted to get in on the action.

Ikoku had finally taken the same route as Makoto and just left the phone off the hook.

Soon thereafter the press started camping out on their street, followed shortly by star-struck girls who wanted to inveigle their way into the inner circle of a girl who would soon be a princess of some sort. About an hour earlier, the Tokyo PD had finally been summoned to evict the paparazzi and fangirls, but the police efforts weren't entirely effective, and the occasional fangirl or really stubborn cameraman would sneak through the police line.

After the fifth incident (Usagi finding a fangirl _with a camera_ in her shower, Makoto physically tossing the girl out the front door, Minako destroying the camera and the film), the once and future Princess of the Moon decided she couldn't take it any longer, gave her mom a flimsy excuse for staying with Makoto (which her mother, too frazzled by the situation to argue, agreed to), got to a secluded spot between houses she had used for transforming in the past, activated her Sailor suit, and ran off into the night, her fellow Senshi just a few steps behind her.

Sailor Jupiter could hear Venus on the communicator with Mars and Mercury. As there was no youma present, there was no reason to do an all-call, but that didn't stop them from calling in some friends to get together to find a way to get out of the situation, or at least cheer up Sailor Moon.

Abruptly, Sailor Moon came to a stop. Jupiter and Venus stumbled into each other, trying to brake their momentum. Moon stood silently for a moment, then slumped to her knees, weakly punching the roofing tiles beneath her. "Stupid prince..."

It was at that moment Sailor Mars arrived. "I came as quickly as I could..." she trailed off when she saw Sailor Moon, and was by her friend's side in a heartbeat. The raven-haired girl draped her arm over her friend's shoulders, "Hey, meatball head, what's with the long face?"

o0o0o

Nabiki could feel her ribs begin to creak as the youma held her pinned against the crate. Her feet were kicking ineffectually six inches off the floor while her left arm was pinned between her stomach and the crate, and her right arm was stretched out and had somehow managed to remain unpunctured by the creature's talons. Her head was turned to the right, where she could see the key she'd been holding with a death grip glint in the low light of the warehouse.

Abruptly, she felt a tugging sensation. Having spent enough time around Ranma, Happosai, Cologne, Miss Hinako, and other Qi adepts, she knew automatically that she was experiencing her first ever Qi drainage.

It wasn't pleasant.

Her face twisted in a rictus of pain and a strangled noise escaped her throat. Were she of a mind to objectively examine the experience, she would have supposed it was rather akin to having one's brain, eyes, throat, heart, stomach, reproductive organs, and digestive tract all being pulled out of one's body through the small of one's back.

Finally, through the fog of pain and withering, smothering darkness that began to envelope her consciousness, she cried out the words that had been rolling in her mind since she had entered the warehouse.

"VENUS PLANET POWER, ACTIVATE!"

o0o0o

Sailor Moon was crying into Sailor Mars' shoulder as Mars uttered soothing noises to their princess and leader. Mars wasn't able to make a whole lot of sense of what Moon said, but she did gather that it had been a very, very rough day and it all involved a prince that had showed up at their school.

Mars kept the boiling fury she felt toward anyone who would do this to her friend in check as she attended to Moon. "Tell you what," she said comfortingly, "If I ever see this prince guy, I'll Burning Mandala him, OK?"

Moon giggled weakly through her sobbing, and the crying was greatly reduced. Venus and Jupiter, who had sat down nearby, smiled encouragingly at Mars, knowing that sometimes all any of them needed was a good shoulder to cry on. At this rate, maybe they _could_ go over to Jupiter's place and stay the night and let this whole thing just blow...

"Ah, Princess. There you are. That power suit certainly does give you quite the speed boost." Prince Xavier said as he stepped off what looked to be a hovering motorcycle. "Once we had pinpointed you on our scopes I must say even the captain was impressed by how quickly you were moving."

...up. Naturally, the prince once again showed his incredible sense of bad timing, right when they had almost calmed Sailor Moon down.

Sailor Mars flinched back in surprise when Sailor Moon growled. "YOU!" spat the Defender of Love and Justice. She shrugged off Sailor Mars and stood, spinning to face the prince. "This ends right now!"

Inexplicably, Xavier's face lit up in a grin. "Oh, excellent! We are going to do it the right way!"

Sailor Moon, enraged at the apparent disregard this stranger had for her personal distress, simply howled and charged at him.

o0o0o

The youma was thrown back, smashing into some crates and boxes. Blinding light pierced the warehouse as the echo from Nabiki's phrase faded away.

Nabiki found herself floating above the floor, spinning slowly as her clothes seemed to evaporate. She felt ribbons of light and color swirl around her body, gently caressing her curves until they took the pattern of a jumper around her torso and then abruptly solidified into a sort of fabric. More ribbons fluttered about her wrists, then became metal wrist bracers. A bit more of the magic swirled through her hands and fingers, finally forming fingerless gloves. She instinctively gripped down, making fists with her hands. She felt a caress of magic around her feet, almost tickling her as the sensation traveled up her ankles, finally collapsing to form boots. The energy billowed around her waist and suddenly formed up a skirt. She felt rather than saw the gem form on her head and the magic spread out to create a tiara.

After a moment of blinding light and change, Nabiki found her feet settling on the floor. She felt a power surging through her like she had never experienced before. She felt like she could lift a truck...no, a building! She felt like she could jump _over_ a building!

Nabiki wondered briefly if this was what Ranma felt like all the time.

o0o0o

Ranma, grateful for the brief break he seemed to be enjoying, actually smiled as he punted Tatewaki Kuno a block and a half back to the Kuno mansion. A sudden sneeze distracted him briefly, but he blithely shook it off and sauntered off to the market to pick up the greens Kasumi asked for at the last minute. He decided to whistle a tune he'd heard once.

Three minutes later, Ryoga wandered by the same spot, face buried in a map of Kenya and completely missing the fact that he was in Nerima before disappearing around a nearby corner.

o0o0o

Nabiki was suddenly brought back to her surroundings when she was launched into a pile of boxes by the large fist of the youma. Pushing herself up and dusting off her fuku, she realized that she had taken a blow which should have shattered at least a few bones and was able to hop back up unscathed. Another phrase tagged her mind, coupled with some gestures that seemed a bit silly. Dodging a clawing blow, she realized that it didn't really matter if it was silly or not, the last goofy phrase that went through her mind worked out pretty good, so this one might work out as well.

"VENUS ONE YEN COIN SHOWER!" she shouted. From literally nowhere one-yen coins formed in the air, already flying at terminal velocity, and peppered the youma's body. The attack lasted a second, but to Nabiki's very well trained eye, it appeared that more than 4,000 coins had struck the youma, all at very high speed.

With a hideous gurgling noise, the monster shuddered on the floor, then collapsed into a pile of quickly dissipating dust.

Nabiki stood over her foe and basked in the victory. This spot belonged to Ranma, or Akane, or any one of the martial artists that crossed her life's path. Nabiki had never understood the thrill they got from pummeling their opponents to dust until now.

A scuffling noise interrupted her thoughts. She realized the two men that were part of this little trap were still around. She smiled ferally and turned toward them slowly.

o0o0o

Sailors Mars, Venus, and Jupiter watched in awe as their normally clumsy leader performed martial arts combat like a seasoned pro. Sailor Moon dodged, counterpunched, slid, flipped, and kicked with all the precision of a world class martial artist, at least first-dan ranking, if not higher. To Jupiter's slightly-more-trained-eye-than-the-others, it looked like the fight would be over soon, with The Moon Princess emerging triumphant.

Sailor Mercury skidded to a stop next to Jupiter, clearly out of breath. "What's going on...MOON, STOP!"

While Sailor Moon ignored Mercury in order to dole out a Royal ass-kicking, Jupiter held Mercury back from jumping in. "Hold it there, Water-lily, she needs to blow off some steam."

Mercury struggled to get free, "But you don't understand! If she beats him..." she trailed off and Jupiter turned to see why.

The scene seemed to freeze in time for a moment as Jupiter took it all in. Sailor Moon had her right leg extended upward in a quite vicious snap-kick, her face contorted in an angry, "Kia!" her arms in balancing positions and poised in the follow-through from her last punching combination, and her left leg slightly bent at the knee, her left boot planted firmly on the roofing tiles. Prince Xavier had two swords that Jupiter didn't remember him bringing to the battle stretched out, as though both arms had been swatted aside (which they probably were), his feet were inches off the roof, his legs bent as though interrupted in a jump, back arched, head tossed back and chin pointing at the sky.

An instant later, the tableau was broken and the Prince flipped through the air, slamming down on his back, swords clattering across the roof, clearly knocked out cold.

Sailor Moon finished the follow-through for the kick, resumed a stance, then realized the fight was over. She began jumping for joy, ecstatic that not only did she win a fight without her Senshi magic, she also creamed the guy that turned her day into a living nightmare.

Mars and Venus promptly began cheering as Moon began dancing around the roof with joy. Jupiter was about to join in their festivities when she heard Mercury's quiet, "Oh, dear..." She glanced at the blue haired Senshi and saw a great deal of concern etched on the other girl's face.

o0o0o

Kaneda hid in the shadows behind a dumpster. The chick the demon guy had brought had to be a Senshi, that was the only explanation for the light show and subsequent total defeat of their demonic contact. How in the world someone so powerful would land in a trap like that Kaneda would never know.

The senshi had already taken out Daiki. When the demon guy had gone down, the two had made a break for it, hoping to escape while the senshi cleaned up the mess. They didn't expect her speed, however, and Kaneda once again proved that you don't need to outrun the bear, you just need to outrun the other guy.

This led him to the aforementioned dumpster and hiding. He struggled to get his breath under control, hoping that he had somehow ditched the senshi.

He realized he'd have no such luck when a fingerless glove grabbed his shirt collar. His world became a blur as the senshi effortlessly jumped like a reverse pachinko ball up the sides of two buildings, quickly landing on the rooftop of one of them and standing on the edge, casually holding Kaneda at arms length. He looked down and nearly lost the contents of his bowels as he realized he was now seven stories up and the only thing keeping him from dying was a very pissed senshi.

"So," she said, "I've already talked to your pal. He seems to believe that you'll know more about your youma friend than him." She gave him an evil smile, "You can understand how I'm rather interested in more...information."

Kaneda had heard about this sort of situation. He now had a choice of death by falling or death by hitman when his bosses found out about him turning stoolpidgin. He _really_ wished he hadn't gotten out of bed this morning. "I...I don't know..."

"Bzzzt! Wrong answer!" she let go with the hand that was holding him aloft. Before he could scream in panic, her other hand shot out and grabbed his shirt. "So, let's try again. What do you know about the youma?"

Death by falling was suddenly a much more immediate threat. "OK, OK! The boss has been in contact with these guys, I don't know a whole lot more than that."

Nabiki smirked. This was so much more fun than simple extortion. "So, you know nothing more? Let's say I remove my fingers one by one," she demonstrated by pulling her index finger from the fist gripping his shirt. The sudden slack caused Kaneda to drop a quarter inch, "Until we get to the point where my hand just doesn't hold you up anymore?"

Kaneda panicked and gripped the bracer around the senshi's wrist, hoping to avoid a nasty destiny as a road pizza. "'Retribution!' They call themselves Retribution! They're trying to form a syndicate with a bunch of the Yakuza families!"

Police sirens could be heard from down the street. For the first time since he joined the clan, he was glad to hear the sirens. Maybe the cops could talk this crazy lady out of dropping him.

"Retribution...forming a syndicate...that's it?" said the senshi casually, pulling her middle finger out of the fist.

"YES, YES! I SWEAR, THAT'S ALL I KNOW!"

Nabiki nodded, satisfied that the hoodlum was revealing all the information he had. She pulled some bungee cable from her belt that she had picked up at a nearby sporting goods store after she'd taken care of the other thug. 'Taken care of,' of course, meant that she had tied up said thug with a display case of cargo netting after throwing the thug through the window of the sporting goods store, setting off the alarm and summoning the police. "Next time you meet your bosses or this 'Retribution' they're so fond of, I want you to tell them that I'm going to be all over them like feathers on a duck from now on." She tossed the loop she already tied on the cord around a metal fixture on the roof top.

Kaneda scrambled to maintain his grip on the senshi's bracer, "Who...who are you?"

She yanked him close, so their noses were almost touching, "I'm Sailor V."

She abruptly shook him off her hand, and he screamed as he began to plummet to the ground. Sailor V was right behind him, having leapt off the building right after dropping him. She lopped the cord around his ankles and used her senshi enhanced speed to tie a secure knot in the cable. She flipped mid-air and pushed away from the building face, letting Kaneda fall to the extent of the rope, slam against the building, and get yanked back up. Sailor V flipped again, landed in the street right in front of the incoming police car, bounced up against the building on the opposite side of the street, ping-ponged back and forth back up to the rooftops, and roof-hopped away from the scene.

o0o0o

Sailor Jupiter gripped Mercury's shoulder, "What's wrong? She kicked his butt."

"That's _precisely_ what's wrong." said Sailor Mercury. "It's part of the standard treaty that the Riginium Empire signs with all it's trading partners and allies. It means that..."

She was interrupted by a groan from the now stirring prince. He sat up, shook his head to clear it, then boosted himself up to his feet. "Excellent!" he began, "I shall have the captain begin the arrangements immediately."

Sailor Moon stopped her victory dance and glared at the prince, "What preparations?" she snapped.

"Why, our marriage, of course."

"What are you talking about? I just kicked your butt like a youma!"

The prince let the Earth-bound reference slide, "That's it exactly. Surely your advisors have explained the ceremony to you."

Sailor Moon turned to Mercury, "Do you know what he's talking about?"

Mercury sighed and pulled out her computer again, "As I was trying to tell you, by agreeing to the ceremonial battle and proving your worth by defeating the Riginium representative in combat, you...er, provide full consent to the, um...matrimony ceremony to..." she lost her nerve toward the end of her 'explanation' and just waved vaguely at the prince.

Sailor Moon blinked in confusion at Mercury, trying to piece together what the other girl said.

Jupiter managed to decipher Mercury's words. The blue haired girl always tended to use large vocabulary when she didn't want to deliver bad news. "You're kidding!" Jupiter blurted out.

Sailor Moon looked frantic, "What are you saying, what's going on?!" She turned in panic to look at Prince Xavier.

He simply shrugged in that annoyingly handsome way he had, "Why, we're to be married tomorrow now that you've given your consent in the traditional combat ceremony."

Moon turned to Mercury to translate. The young genius looked down at the roofing tile, "He proposed, you said yes."

It was the punctuation mark to a very, very bad day. Moon's mind was overwhelmed, and she fainted. Her last conscious thought was, _Please, __please don't let it be the prince that catches me!_

o0o0o

Sailor V flew into her bedroom through her open window and landed nimbly on her feet. She had a huge grin on her face, her breathing was deep, as if she had finished a particularly good jog, but she felt more like she had just deboarded the most intense roller coaster _ever_.

She flopped down on her bed face up, enjoying the exhileration and afterglow. She was going to have to get more information about the senshi, possibly by going straight to the source. The magazines were good, but there was only so much they could actually dig up on the secretive super-group.

Sailor V reached up idly and ran her fingertip over the tiara that had formed on her forhead. She touched the gem in the center and was startled when her fuku suddenly collapsed, leaving her clutching her transformation key in the same hand that was caressing the tiara. "Well," Nabiki muttered to herself, "That solves that problem before I thought of it."

She suddenly heard the latch of her door opening and dropped the key behind her pillow. The door opened to reveal Kasumi, who did a double-take and gasped, "Nabiki? I didn't know you were home."

The younger sister propped herself up on her elbows, "Oh, sorry 'bout that. I had some unexpected business that kept me late and I didn't want to cause a fuss when I came home. I snuck in just a few moments ago."

Kasumi blinked and processed what her sister said. Were Nabiki the type to sweat under preasure, she'd be drenched. She knew Kasumi was smarter than everyone gave her credit for, but she was also nice and polite to a fault. "Well, OK," began Kasumi, "I can warm up some dinner for you if you like."

"That'd be great, sis," said Nabiki, "I haven't eaten since lunch and I've still got studying to do."

Kasumi nodded and closed the door.

Nabiki retrieved her key from behind her pillow, gazed at it lovingly, and clutched it to her chest. "All this time I never knew...WOW it feels good to be one of the power-players!" Grinning broadly, she began to change out of her school uniform and into something more casual to go enjoy her sister's excellent cooking.


	8. Energy Bloom

Fission

By HomerNet

Disclaimer: Ranma and Sailor Moon are properties of their respective owners who are not me. This is an original work by the author and any resemblance to the works it derives from is totally intentional and meant as a form of praise and flattery. No money is being made off of this in any way.

Author's Notes: Oh, crap! They're on to me!

Chapter 7: Energy Bloom

Ranma blinked over his food at the unusual sight of Nabiki shoveling in her breakfast like she was trying to imitate...well, _him_. "Little hungry, Nabs?"

Nabiki paused, a bite of french toast in her mouth, another bite of french toast on her chopsticks poised over the cup of syrup. She blinked at him for a moment, chewed, swallowed, the replied, "As a matter of fact, I am, Saotome," she dunked the bite of french toast in her chopsticks into the syrup, "And don't call me 'Nabs.'"

Ranma shrugged, lowered his chopsticks to retrieve his own french toast, only to discover it missing. This confused him greatly; this morning was one of the times his mother opted to sit between him and his father. This usually made it so difficult for Genma to steal Ranma's food that the part time panda usually didn't bother. He blinked and looked over to his left at his father, who was ignoring Ranma (for once) in favor of the western-styled breakfast that Kasumi had served.

"This is quite good, Kasumi-sama." came an androgynous voice to his right.

_That's not what Akane usually sounds like,_ thought the confused teenager.

"Oh, thank you, Konatsu-chan!" chirped Kasumi, setting another plate of french toast in front of Ranma, and a new plate to his right.

Blinking, Ranma turned to see Konatsu, who had _somehow_ gotten into the house, squeezed in between himself and Akane, stolen his plate _and_ consumed it's contents, for all the world looking like he'd been there the whole time.

Save for Kasumi, the entire family paused in surprise at their new breakfast tablemate. Konatsu didn't seem to notice, merely dipping another piece of french toast into Ranma's cup of syrup. Wordlessly, Kasumi placed another syrup cup next to Konatsu's plate.

Nabiki recovered first, "I hope you're planning on paying for that." she said as she glared at the kunoichi.

Konatsu suddenly looked like he'd been punched in the gut. He sat with his chopsticks poised halfway between his plate and syrup cup, the blood slowly draining from his face.

His reaction spurred Akane from her surprise, "Nabiki! Don't be rude!"

Nabiki turned her glare on her sister, only to meet an obsidian slate of indignation. She turned her gaze to her older sister, only to find a slight frown on Kasumi's face. That, far more than the obvious reaction from Konatsu or Akane, caused her to relent. "Fine, fine...just another freeloader..." she muttered, grabbing the financial section of the paper from her father and hiding behind it for the remainder of breakfast.

Soun turned his surprised gaze to his now empty hands.

At this point, save for Soun's apparently frozen visage, breakfast activity resumed its normal pace.

"So, Konatsu, what brings you here?" asked Nodoka. She hadn't met the young ninja before, but if Kasumi accepted the kunoichi so readily with Akane coming to Konatsu's defense, then it must be all right.

Konatsu bowed slightly in deference to the Saotome matriarch and produced a pamphlet from..._somewhere_ on his person. (It's a ninja thing) "Just this, Aunti-sama." Nodoka giggled slightly at the odd mixture of casual and formal speech, especially directed at her, "One of the other dojos in the area is putting on a tournament." The ninja placed the pamphlet in the middle of the table. "It's invitation only, and the invitation went to Ukyo-sama..."

"Huh," grunted Ranma, "I wonder why I wasn't invited?"

Soun seemed to snap out of his reverie, "Ah, actually," he began, "I had heard about it. Naturally, I was surprised that we weren't invited." He seemed like he was about to continue, then tried to become abnormally interested in his paper. When he realized that his paper was no longer in it's accustomed position, he became abnormally interested in his breakfast.

Akane recognized all the warning signs that her father was hiding something, "Daddy..." she growled threateningly.

"Ah, yes, well..." Soun laughed as he began again, "I called the organizing committee. They simply expressed their opinion that both you and Ranma were simply far to skilled to face the average and mundane students in the other schools..."

"In other words," drawled Nabiki from behind the paper, "Ranma'd cause too much damage to the opponents and Akane'd cause too much damage to the building."

To this, Ranma looked put out, and Akane looked crestfallen.

"So what brings you here, Konatsu?" inquired Nodoka.

Having regained the metaphorical floor, Konatsu continued from where he was interrupted, "Well, Ukyo-sama will be at a chef's convention while the tournament is to take place, so will not be able to attend. Since the restaurant will be closed while she is at the convention, she permitted me to go in her place." The ninja paused, biting his gently lipstick covered lower lip.

Before anyone could ask what Konatsu was hesitating for, Nabiki once again spoke up, "According to the rules of the competition, you have to be sponsored by a local dojo to compete." An unladylike snort came from behind the still propped up paper, followed by the pamphlet, casually tossed in Ranma's direction. "Yeah, good luck on _that_ one, Ko-kun."

Ranma caught the pamphlet before it could land in the sausage. "Man, that does kinda suck."

Nodoka, eyes twinkling, picked up on what her son obviously had not, "Konatsu, dear, did you want the Tendo Dojo to sponsor you?"

All at once Konatsu's face with from pensive to positively joyful. "Oh, if you could?!"

"What about the ban?" asked Akane, still upset about that particular subject.

Soun appeared thoughtful, appraised Konatsu as if inspecting a prize-winning horse, remembered just how good at martial arts the ninja was, and clapped his right fist into his left hand. "Well, they didn't ban the whole dojo, they just barred Ranma and Akane from entering. This is a fine solution!" Soun reached across Akane and patted Konatsu on the shoulder, "We'd be proud to sponsor you for this tournament! I just know you'll bring honor to the dojo," abruptly Soun pulled a Demon Head(tm) on the ninja, "WON'T YOU!?"

Akane turned red and glared at her father, "Daddy! Knock it off!"

Soun cringed and moaned into his tea about his daughter being so scary.

o0o0o

Makoto's home gave all the appearances of hosting a mourning party for the recently deceased. The lighting was subdued, the curtains drawn...even the normally up-beat hostess kept her morning preparations to a muted deliberation.

There was even moaning and wailing, not unlike what one would find at a mourning party.

"What am I gonna doooooo?" wailed Usagi.

Makoto kept her peace as she made breakfast. She'd learned about an hour ago that if she said _anything_ to comfort or empathize with the sometime Moon Princess that it would simply set the ponytailed girl off on another crying-and-whining jag.

"I'm promised to Mamo-chan...we were even married in the future...we're gonna have a kid together..." Usagi's eyes went wide and she drew a shuddering breath. Makoto, still keeping silent, cringed and felt the muscles in her shoulders tense. Usagi had come to realization after realization as the implications of a diplomatically decreed royal wedding would mean for the girl, the team, her life as Usagi, her life as Prince-ne-Queen Serenity the Second, etc. It was clear proof that there was actually more between those odango's than air. "What if...what if I get stuck in a loveless marriage and my only solace is Mamo-chan...and I...and he...and Chibi-Usa..." Makoto was immensely glad she was facing _away_ from Usagi right then as her cringe would have only made Usagi's reaction worse. This was going to be a bad one... "I'M GONNA CHEAT ON MY HUSBAND! WHAAAAAAAAA!!!"

o0o0o

Ranma sat on the back porch, calmly watching Konatsu work through a kata that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike Saotome-ryu. For once his father sat next to him and simply sat, rather than goad or taunt him. They both had similar frowns on their faces, showing that the pair were indeed far more alike than Ranma might be comfortable with. Ranma was blissfully ignorant of this fact, however, and made a low "hmmm" deep in his throat as he watched his stand-in for the upcoming tournament.

Genma echoed Ranma's sentiment. "He lacks flexibility." the older man added.

Ranma nodded. "And where he could be applying power he's temporizing."

The two Saotome's heaved a sigh simultaneously. "He's damned quick, though." Ranma said after another moment had passed. With that, the teenager got up and walked over to Konatsu to polish the crossdresser's stances.

Genma watched as his son started his friend on a kata that was sure to be unfamiliar to the kuunoichi. (as Ranma had developed it himself not two days before) Within minutes Konatsu had picked it up nearly perfectly and began adapting it to his own style. "Well," muttered Genma, "They don't call him a 'Genius Kuunoichi' for nothing."

o0o0o

Usagi trudged her way to school, following the route recommended by Makoto. The taller girl had to stay behind at her home to do some cleanup, not having been used to having guests for breakfast. Her gloom was so palpable she _almost_ completely missed it when an old lady splashed her with a ladle full of water. Usagi felt the initial stirrings of a headache developing as she mentally shrugged off the idea of chewing out the old lady. Frankly, with an impending unwanted nuptual, plus all the potential consequences that a _very_ public wedding to an interstellar prince hanging over her head, a little water didn't seem worth the trouble. She had received a report from Ami, who _always_ arrived at school early, that the prince's people were already setting up for the wedding in the school courtyard. Why at the school, Usagi didn't know or care, but it just added to her sense that she was even now walking to her doom. Sighing in rather deep depression and ignoring the creaky apologies from the old woman, Usagi continued on with her walk.

She had made it about a block further when she heard a sort of hissing moan. Blinking herself out of her reverie, she looked up in surprise to see a youma. This one looked for all the world like someone had literally poured mud into a mold of a human, set it out on the street, then dumped water on it after opening the mold. It was a runny mass of brown ick and it was shambling in the direction of a nearby office building, no doubt because it sensed some negative energy due to the start of the workday. Usagi's brows furrowed and she momentarily forgot about her troubles as an opportunity to dish out some Senshi justice popped up. She glanced around and found a small passage between two buildings, probably not more than four feet wide, and ducked into it. She pulled out her ginzuishou and called out her activation phrase.

Once again, there was the lifting into the air, the gentle turning in the air, and the touch of magic. Usagi registered nothing at all odd until the gentle "tap-tap" of boots touching down gently on pavement echoed in the small space.

_Why_, came the thought, _Does the ground seem so far away?_

A hiss from the youma stymied further thought as Sailor Moon ran out of the alley. The muddy creature seemed to sense the senshi and turned to face the soldier of Love and Justice just in time to take a boot heel to the face. Sailor Moon's running jump was unusual, but was the first thing that occurred to the teenaged superhero, superseding even the usual "punishment" speech. _Speaking of which…_

"Demons like you…" Sailor Moon halted when the voice that started the phrase was distinctly lower than expected. Hands to throat and a glance down eliminated all thought as sheer terror overtook Usagi's mind.

Glancing about, a quick look in the reflective glass of the nearby office building confirmed what the quick glance had revealed. Instead of the usual reflection of a teenaged girl in form-fitting sailor fuku, there stood a bishonen young man in a sailor _suit_. His shirt was tailor fit, sleeves tucking into the usual Sailor Moon gloves. Instead of a skirt, he wore slacks that tucked neatly into his boots, which instead of Sailor Moon's standard high-heel boots, were snub-toed riding boots with the same coloration and patterns as the usual boots. There was even a single long pony-tail that draped over one shoulder.

Sailor Moon took a step back, the reflection matched in movement. Dawning realization and horror warred on the reflection's face, matching what Usagi's emotions were right at that moment.

"I…I'm a guy!" came a cracking falsetto.

o0o0o

Ranma was starting to wonder if maybe Akane should have come with Konatsu instead of him. It wasn't that he wasn't glad he didn't have to go to school thanks to Konatsu needing a representative from the sponsoring dojo with him. It was just so _boring_ to watch the fights instead of actually being part of the tournament.

Of course, it didn't help his boredom that Konatsu was head and shoulders better than any of the so far presented competition.

They were in a large dojo that was part of a larger building. It appeared that the owners of the new dojo were going for the "all-sport" dojo that was starting to become more popular amongst the more pedestrian martial art forms like Karate or Kung-fu. They had been given a tour of the place and had even been shown a decent sized lap-swimming pool. Needless to say, Ranma avoided it until they entered the dojo proper.

Having given up on counting boards in the floor (an even 900) and sorting papers from the information packet (why were there rules against running up the walls?), Ranma languidly turned his head from side to side, letting his eyes drift over the scenes of tournament battles as his brain did it's best to shut down without actually sleeping. In so doing, he caught glimpses of a couple of the competitors stretched out next to the rings they had fought in. They were the losers, and Ranma could see why. They had obviously expended too much energy to their earlier matches if they were that close to exhaustion already. A couple of the winners were helping with their wiped-out opponents, but most were setting up for their next match.

Ranma's head lolled backward as he uttered under his breath, "Kami, I'm bored!"

Had he opened up his Qi senses, he would have sensed that the losers weren't just exhausted, they were being drained. Some of energy was going to the winner, but the majority was being pulled over to the wall where the dojo sensei sat, lotus position, calmly watching the proceedings.

o0o0o

Sailor Moon was brought out of his shock when a muddy fist slammed upwards into his groin. Pain and anguish tore through his senses like nothing had ever done before. "Yeah…definitely a guy…" he squeaked out just before being slammed aside by the youma and through a storefront.

The youma proved to be particularly aggressive, as Moon had barely felt the glass stop falling on his curled up form than it had jumped on him and snarled fiercely, it's mouth opening up further than it should have been able to, obviously just about to bite down hard on Sailor Moon's unprotected head.

As luck would have it, the store the youma had thrown Moon through turned out to be a lingerie store. Not that the moon…er, _prince_ would have necessarily equated "lingerie" with "luck," but then he was entirely unfamiliar with Happosai.

"Evil, vile creature!" came the creaky voice of an old man from inside the store, "You…you have dared to damage this fine establishment who's sole…glorious existence is for the vending of Silky Darlings to beautiful young women!" Usagi looked up through tear-filled eyes to see a short, shriveled little gnome of a man looking for all the world like he was on fire. The girl-turned-boy was just as glad that the old man's ire seemed directed at the youma, who was stunned to apparent immobility at the ludicrous-ness of the little man threatening it. "I won't stand for it! I won't! In the name of the Silky Darlings, I shall punish you!" Bellowing out a mighty war-cry, Happosai leapt at the mud-monster and the two tumbled out of the building.

Sailor Moon struggled to contain his pain as he stood. He had to get out of the building and help that nice old man! He had to stop the youma from _seriously_ injuring an innocent (if foolishly brave) bystander! He had to…

...stand and watch in amazement as Happosai thoroughly trashed the youma. Happosai bounced around the slower monster lobbing Happodaikarins at it. Before the older man could deliver the final blow, however, he just seemed to…wind down, like an old clock who's mainspring has run out. Sailor Moon uttered a tiny, "Gleep!" as the monster reared up in preparation to attack the old man.

Sailor Moon darted forward and swept Happosai out of the way as the youma slammed down right where the old man had stopped. As Moon put the old man down well out of the way from the youma, he heard Happosai say, "Oooh, I'm not as young as I used to be."

"Stay here, sir, I'll finish this thing off." said Moon. So saying, he leapt back toward the youma and whipped off his tiara. It was only then that he noticed it wasn't pointed and was more like a circlet than a tiara. He shrugged mentally and sang off his attack phrase anyway, "Moon Tiara Action!" boomed a tenor voice as the tiara-cum-circlet became the familiar disc of compressed magical energy. He launched it at the youma and watched as it blasted a hole through the mud creature. It lost all semblance of mud as it lost cohesion and broke down into youma dust.

o0o0o

"Konatsu wins; next round." the voice of the referee cut through Ranma's light doze. He blinked himself awake just long enough to register that there were a far larger number of prostrate contestants lined up against one of the walls of the dojo. The winners were clearly amped, Konatsu being the only one that wasn't obviously externally revved up for the next round, bouncing about like boxers instead of well-trained martial artists. Ranma sneered in disgust as he watched the close of another combat as _both_ contestants were exhibiting far more aggression than was necessary for the fight. Again, Konatsu showed how much of a better fighter he was than the rest of the opponents as the ninja simply bowed to the dojo master, bowed to Ranma, then calmly sat in a meditative position by the competition mat, allowing his body some time to recover and his Qi a moment to replenish itself. Ranma let his head loll back and his eyes drift closed again.

o0o0o

Sailor Moon caught his circlet and slipped it back on his head. He turned to check on Happosai, only to see the old man calmly sitting and smoking a pipe. He seemed to be appraising the male senshi.

"Uh…yes?" stammered Sailor Moon.

Happosai puffed his pipe once, then said, "I sense a potential in you, boy. Very much like one of my students. I take it you haven't had any training in the Art?"

Sailor Moon was momentarily caught off-guard by the masculine references addressing him. "Er, art? I get OK grades in art at school…"

Happosai grimaced, "What are they teaching kids these days…" he muttered to himself, "No, boy, the Art! Masubetsu Kokotu Ryu, martial arts!"

"Oh, like kung fu? No, I never have, one of my friends kinda does martial arts…" Frankly, she didn't know _anyone_ that could pull bombs from thin air like this old man seemed to be able to do.

"Such a shame, such a shame…" Happosai puffed on his pipe again. "Name's Happosai. Master of Anything Goes Martial Arts and Liberator of Silky Darlings. I'm afraid I just can't see your kind of potential go to waste." The old man tapped out his pipe and tucked it into his gi, "I've stuff to do right now, but I'll visit the area again. You need training, young man. Do you accept this offer from a humble old man?"

Usagi blinked. This morning was just getting stranger and stranger. "You want to teach me martial arts?" Happosai nodded, "Me, super-klutz and mea…er, ditz?" He had almost called himself 'meatball-head.'

Happosai snorted, "Both conditions can be remedied with training. Come, boy, do you accept or not?"

Usagi swallowed heavily. He knew that he had the most potential power of all the Senshi, but only occasionally did it ever show through. The fight with Queen Beryl flashed through his head and his doubts suddenly fled. If he could bring out that level of power through _training_ instead of desperate, last-minute _chance_, then his friends deaths might not have even happened. "I accept!" he said in a surprisingly masculine tone.

A sage smile spread across Happosai's face. "Excellent. Well, I must take my leave. Next time, leave the power-suit at home. My students get no crutches." With that, Happosai leapt to the rooftop of the now destroyed lingerie store.

Moon saw him disappear, then realized something and leapt after the old man. By the time he made it to the roof edge, however, Happosai was well on his way across the rooftops. "But I haven't even told you my name, how will you find me?" he yelled.

"I've seen your aura," came the creaky voice across the rooftops, "I'll find you, don't you worry about that…" and with that, the old man was gone.

Usagi blinked, awareness of his surroundings penetrating his senses once again. He looked down to the street where the youma had turned to dust to see some police officers already clearing the scene. A couple of college age kids who were out early had pulled out their cell phones and were snapping pictures of the scene and…_uh-oh!_ …him! Realizing he was giving the crowd prime picture snapping opportunity, he leapt away in the general direction of his school.

After a few minutes, he stopped and sat down to take an accounting of everything that happened. He quickly discovered that he couldn't sit the same way he used to, so crossed his legs and sat Indian style like his younger brother did, resting his chin on his fist.

He was a guy. Such had never, ever happened before, and Ami certainly hadn't mentioned it whenever she researched the senshi armor in the Mercury computer. Around this time the thought occurred to him that he also had school to get to, and how in the _world _would he explain a sudden magical sex change to the school authorities? Just being late would be bad enough, even though he _did_ have a verifiable excuse thanks to the youma attack. He had, in fact, used such a reason successfully before when he had needed to dispatch a youma on the way to school, as such an attack often would result in the general populous needing to detour or delay their regular commutes.

Then he suddenly realized that not only did he have to somehow explain this to the school authorities, he had to face Prince Xavier, who would probably take the whole thing as a personal insult and create an interstellar incident if he lost the inevitable duel…

_Wait a minute!_ he thought, _It's perfect!_ With that thought, he leapt up and bounded across the rooftops toward his school, cackling with glee at his sudden inspiration.

o0o0o

Prince Xavier paced back and forth in front of the flower-garlanded archway where the ship's captain would officiate in the marriage ceremony. The captian wasn't there, owing to the reason the prince was pacing irritably, that is to say that Usagi, the bride, wasn't there. The captain was presently back on their ship, attempting to use his scanners to find the girl. The reports weren't good, however, as the unique signature that identified the Moon Princess seemed to just drop off the map abruptly an hour earlier. Rei stood nearby in her priestess robes, obviously glaring daggers at the bishonen man. She might not be able to prevent the wedding, but she could at least make it official by Earth standards. Ami sat in a chair by the arch she had pulled up from the audience and set up in the Bride's Maid position, dressed in her usual school uniform and computer on her lap, seemingly oblivious to the whole affair. Minako stood toward the back of the audience seating with the other cheerleaders. She had broken out her best cheer uniform for the event, which probably made her the best dressed of the senshi there so far. The other cheerleaders had followed suit, and were, like their leader, angrily glaring at the prince. They didn't know exactly _why_ they were angry with him, but if Mina was upset, that was good enough for the rest of them. Makoto, having arrived late and wearing her usual slightly rumpled school uniform, stood near the school gates.

The prince abruptly stopped and turned to Ami and voiced the question on everyone's mind. "Where is she?!"

Ami glared up at the prince, "Once again, sir, I don't know. I've tried calling her repeatedly, but she is simply not answering." Ami glanced at the school gates, saw Makoto, and raised her eyebrow in question. Makoto shook her head and glanced out the gates, looking for Usagi. Ami returned her attention to Xavier, "She left for school this morning, but we don't know where she is now."

"You're her adviser, aren't you? Shouldn't you be keeping better track of your charge?" The prince's veneer of the dashing gentleman was starting to wear off as each tick of the clock brought him closer and closer to losing face in front of a very large crowd.

Luna and Artemis, who were lounging nearby, glared at the man. They didn't speak, of course, but Ami saw Luna bristle and Artemis' tail twitch. "No, _sir_, I'm not her advisor. I am, however, her friend; as such, I have far more reason to be concerned for her wellbeing than you do. Occasional absences like this are not terribly uncommon, so please calm down. Rest assured that if we feel it's important we will track her down ourselves if need be."

Xavier angrily spun on his heal and resumed his pacing. He hadn't completed a full circuit when a tenor voice range out across the crowd, "Prince Xavier, I hereby challenge you to a duel for your right to wed Usagi Tsukino this day!"

The entire assemblage turned to see a handsome blond man with a single, long ponytail and an outfit that looked startlingly like Sailor Moon's usual suit standing on the school's perimeter wall, hands on his hips and silhouetted dashingly by the sunlight which came streaming over his shoulder. Suddenly all the girls in the courtyard were now torn by the dashing prince on one hand and the handsome rogue on the other.

The prince scowled and turned abruptly to Ami. The genius girl simply shrugged, a fully surprised expression etched on her face. He turned back to the stranger. "Who are you?"

Before the stranger could reply, another male voice rang throughout the crowd, "That's a very good question." The assembly parted to reveal Mamoru Chiba. "The right to challenge Prince Xavier should be mine as Usagi's boyfriend and future husband."

For the girls in the crowd, the romance index was off the charts. A handsome prince, a mysterious stranger, _and_ the commoner boyfriend were all ready to fight for Usagi's hand. A couple had hearts permanently etched on their eyes.

Usagi found himself at a loss. He hadn't thought of a way to identify himself that wouldn't reveal who he really was and blow the whole scheme. Then there was Mamo-chan, standing there giving him a glare that Usagi didn't think he'd _ever_ have seen directed at him from his boyfriend.

A part of her mind pointed out just how strange that thought was, she dismissed it for futher study.

"Indeed, you bear a passing resemblance to…" the prince began.

Ami plowed over the prince's sentence, knowing that he'd reveal their secret to the world if allowed to continue, "Sailor Moon! You look kind of like Sailor Moon!"

Mamoru had obviously heard and began scowling even more. Usagi could practically see the thought process running through his fiance's head. After all, not only was a strange boy stepping in on his challenge, but he also was using the costume and motif of his beloved. Suddenly, Usagi realized her problems were quickly multiplying. "Does it really matter what I'm called?" she snapped in slightly panicked irritability, "Let's just get on with this!"

Prince Xavier glowered at Sailor Moon. "Yes, it does matter, you unschooled cur! I would know who it is I defeat this day!" He snapped, and an attendant brought him his swords, which he quickly unsheathed.

"Hey!" snapped Mamoru at Xavier, "Your fight's with me!"

Xavier didn't even dignify Mamoru with a glance, "Silence, commoner, you'll get your chance when I'm finished with this ruffian."

The Earth Prince bristled, "COMMONER!?" he snapped. He felt his hand flinch as if to grab for his sword before realizing that he wasn't in his Prince Endemion guise. Realizing that he was clearly the least prepared combatant in this particular fight, he struggled to maintain his self-control.

Usagi looked at Mamo-chan in sympathy, which was lost thanks to Mamoru's glaring at Xavier. Gaining sudden inspiration from Mamoru's presence, he blurted out, "The Moon Knight!"

Both princes and the senshi all blinked at Usagi. "I beg your pardon?" querried Xavier.

"I'm called The Moon Knight, and I'm here to defend the hands of innocent young Earth maidens who are simply going about their day! You shall not disrupt Usagi's life any further after I win our duel, nor will you bother her friends or family with your nonsense about uniting the Moon Kingdom and Riginium Empire through marriage."

Xavier smirked, "Very well, I accept your terms. When _I_ win our duel, you and your simple friend here," he casually indicated Mamoru with a flick of the tip of a sword, "Will leave this wedding be and allow this union to continue _without_ further interruption."

"Hey, now, he doesn't speak for me!" snapped Mamoru, pointing at The Moon Knight. Xavier ignored him and Moon Knight glanced over in sympathy at his boyfriend. This also went unnoticed.

The crowd fell back making a roughly circular arena for the two combatants. Usagi leapt off the wall and walked through the crowd as Xavier stepped forward. They faced each other for a moment and Xavier bowed to Usagi. He awkwardly returned the bow and straightened up just in time for Xavier to charge, swords pointed dangerously at The Moon Knight. Usagi leapt up and over the prince, but didn't gain much advantage as the prince immediately spun around, swords arcing through the air. Usagi, reacting on instinct, folded herself backwards, the swords cutting the air inches away from his nose. Still allowing his instincts to do the fighting for him, The Moon Knight kicked out, Xavier jumping over the outstretched leg and diving back down, swords extended. Usagi swatted the swords aside and turned her drop into an opportunity to flip the prince backward. He flew through the air and rolled back to an upright stance.

From the back of the crowd, Makoto watched with a wary eye. She didn't know who this stranger was, but there was something damn familiar about him, about his fighting style…

'course, it didn't hurt that the stranger looked just like her old Sempai.

She shook her head to clear the thought out.

Usagi was getting a bit worried. He was clearly a bit out of his league with the prince, and letting his body do the fighting was keeping him in the action, but not really giving him the upper hand. He needed a distraction… "Look!" he said, "It's Voltron!"

The prince blinked and turned, saying, "Who?"

_Too easy…_ thought Usagi. He stepped forward quickly and decked him hard in the chin. The crack of fist to chin seemed to echo around the courtyard as the prince actually spun in place a full three times before collapsing to the ground. The entire courtyard stood in shock as The Moon Knight held her pose. _Wow!_ he thought, _I'm __really__ strong in this body!_

A general cheering came from the students and expressions of resignation and relief passed over the faces of the prince's crew, those who showed any expression at all, that is.

For his part, Usagi kept an eye on the prince. If last night had been any indication, even if the prince did get knocked out in short order, he would recover very quickly. Sure enough, before the cheers could die down, he started stirring.

The crowd quickly quieted, which allowed The Moon Knight to hear a low growl come from Prince Xavier. His head whipped around and the most vicious expression Usagi had ever seen on his face bored into her eyes. "YOU!" he spat, "You have ruined everything! My whole purpose for coming to this heathen system!"

Usagi backed away a step or two, "Hey…c'mon now, it's just a wedding," from the gasp of the girls in the crowd he could tell he had misspoken. "Uh, I mean, you just met the girl, right? So she didn't mean anything to…"

"DIE!" roared the prince as he lunged at his challenger, this time with a small firearm of some sort.

The Moon Knight yelped, turned, and ran, Xavier hot on his heals.

Mamoru, who by this time had worked his way over to Ami, blinked as the pair disappeared over the rooftops, the occasional blast from the prince's firearm firing off into the air. Ami also blinked in confusion. He looked down at her, and by an odd twist of synchronicity, she looked up at him. His eyes held several questions, to which Ami simply shrugged.

o0o0o

Ranma felt himself being shaken lightly, "Ranma-sama, wake up, please."

"Guh…huh…whu…?" Ranma blearily replied, eyes popping open to see Konatsu.

"It's the final round of the tournament, Ranma-sama." said the Kunoichi.

That got Ranma's attention. "Oh, really? Already?"

Konatsu nodded and walked to the mat where the final round was to take place. Ranma stood up from this seat on the side-bench that had been set up for spectators and joined Konatsu opposite the ninja's competition. Ranma's face once again showed disgust as the other martial artist, a practitioner of Tai-chi from the looks of things, bounced in place on his toes, punching the air, and generally wasting a lot of energy.

"Have you been noticing that?" muttered Konatsu.

Ranma started at Konatsu's statement, "What," he muttered back, "These amateurs are wasting energy?"

"I'm not so sure about them being amateurs, but yes. I know a few of the competitors and they're not behaving as they normally do." Konatsu's brow wrinkled cutely as he scanned the wall where the exhausted defeated opponents were sprawled across. "That's another thing," he indicated the wiped out fighters, "It's been a couple hours since the first losers hit the mat, and they're _still_ drained? Something isn't right here."

Ranma's brows now furrowed. Individually, none of the small problems that he noticed would raise any red flags. Put all together, though, and Konatsu was right, there was definitely something strange going on. "Be careful, then." replied Ranma, "We don't know what's going on, it could be a trap."

Konatsu gave Ranma a look that was the closest the part-time girl had seen on the ninja's face to smug confidence, "I'm a kunoichi, we don't fall into traps, we set them."

Ranma smiled grimly and nodded. "I'm here to back you up if you need it."

The dojo sensei, for the first time since they arrived, spoke up. "Warriors, you may take your places." Ranma faded back to the wall as Konatsu and his opponent stepped onto the mat. "Bow," announced the sensei. The two competitors bowed to each other. "Ready…" they took stances, "Fight!"

Ranma didn't actually focus much on the fight. He could tell from the outset that Konatsu would emerge triumphant, if for no other reason than he could simply outlast his opponent, who was committing far too much power to each strike and doing very poorly at speed management. He focused his attention instead on the other fighters who, by now, were all lying on the mats almost where they had fallen. He watched as a couple actually attempted to get up, but they would quickly collapse again. Even the other spectators were lethargic, at the very least, not even getting up to help the competitors they came with. _Come to think of it_, he thought, _I've been rather more tired than usual, myself._

Calmly, he closed his eyes and focused on his "Soul of Ice" technique. He felt it, then, a tiny tugging at his Qi. Of course, his Qi reserves were so large that other than being tired, he suffered no ill effects. He opened his eyes, this time keeping his senses open to the flow of Qi. It was at that point that he sensed it. _All_ the loose Qi in the room, all the Qi from the downed fighters, and the stationary Qi from those watching the fight, was being channeled toward the sensei. Even the referee was starting to show signs of Qi drainage. "Konatsu, you sense it?"

"Silence!" barked the sensei

"Yes, Ranma-sama!" replied the kunoichi. Ranma turned his attention back to the competition. He sensed a large amount of negatively charged Qi in Konatsu's opponent. Curiously, Konatsu himself seemed unaffected by the energy drain, or at least he was only as affected as Ranma, which was to say nearly none.

Ranma turned to the sensei and got a shock. The sensei's eyes were glowing! "Konatsu, end it quickly! The sensei is stealing Qi!" With that, the aquatransexual launched himself at the Qi-vampire.

His attack didn't even come close, as the sensei backhanded Ranma casually into the nearest wall. Konatsu, meanwhile, started using his ninja tricks to take out his opponent, up to and including pepper-bombs. The opponent started screaming as dark energy threatened to push his body beyond it's limits; Konatsu merely stepped in and cold-cocked the martial artist. Now unconscious, the dark energy exploded outward and tried to infest Konatsu. The cross-dressing ninja merely found his center and let the negative Qi flow over and around him. It quickly coalesced to the sensei.

The sensei hadn't remained stationary after casually knocking Ranma away. Legs unfolded and arms outstretched, changing to a dark purple color as they grew longer and more heavily muscled. The dojo master's head began to tilt to the side, then turned completely over as what had been a beard became a shock of white hair. It's mouth opened instead to reveal a pair of monstrous eyes, and what had been eyes became a smaller, second set of glowing eyes. One of the lines on what had been it's bald head split opened to reveal a fanged mouth with a long, slippery tongue.

Ranma righted himself and saw what the sensei had become. "Oh, crap!" he exclaimed, "Konatsu, keep out of it's range, but guard the people here!"

Konatsu pulled his wooden sword and bounced a few more paces away from the youma, "Where are you going, Ranma-sama?"

Ranma was already pelting out of the room, "To get body armor!" he snapped back.

He darted into the next room and leapt into the pool. _Body armor, body armor, body armor…_ ran through his head as he felt the water cover his form. He felt, for the first time, a surge of magic accompanying his transformation, then for no reason that she could at first figure out suddenly shouted out _under water_, "MOON… AQUA… POWER… _ACTIVATE!_"

Konatsu had backed far enough away from the monster while goading it onward that he was able to see what Ranma was doing in the next room. Suddenly, both he and the monster recoiled as water blasted from the pool, light and sound sweeping the room.

Ranma was caught up in a strange transformation like she had never experienced before. She somehow knew it was distinct from her usual Jesenkyo curse. She felt her clothes dissolve into magical mist, then felt ribbons brushing her form. She felt the fingerless gloves, the panties and bra, the fuku, the boots, everything form up on her body. She was even more intently aware of something even stranger going on just in front of her chest. She felt magic streaming out of her, but somehow leaving her even more replenished than if she had just taken a nap. Whatever was going on, it was additive, not subtractive. Two distinct colors flowed from her, one white, the other black. It began swirling together, forming the yin/yang symbol that was familiar to any martial artist, but most especially to her thanks to it's unique meaning for her life. It suddenly hardened into what looked like a crystal, then attached itself to her uniform at the join where her sailor sash met just below her neckline.

This all took place in under three seconds and was completely unseen by Konatsu or the monster thanks to the light show. What Konatsu _did_ see was that, launching up from the explosion of water, light, and sound, was Ranma-sama, but not as the ninja had ever seen her before. He gasped in ecstatic surprise, tinged with a hint of girlish jealousy, "Sailor…"

"MOON…" shouted out an enraged Ranma, "CHESTNUT…" her boots slammed down in front of the youma, "STRIKE!" Ranma-ne-Moon's arms became a magically enhanced blur as she began raining blow after blow against the youma. Incredibly, the youma was blocking or deflecting the punches. Sailor Moon bounced away, and the monster lashed out with an unnaturally long reach against both martial artists. Moon simply leapt over the strike, but Konatsu was occupied with digging something out of his shirt and was blasted through one of the dojo walls. _Maybe just as well,_ Sailor Moon thought, _He doesn't have the proper protection for this kind of fight._

The youma chose that moment to speak, "You have shown your hubris of thinking that the strength of the flesh rules all, forgetting that there is always a better fighter than you. The path to your destruction has been chosen."

"Choose this!" snapped Sailor Moon, leaping forward with a flying kick. The youma simply snatched her leg out of the air and threw her to the other end of the dojo, where she tumbled to a crouching stance.

The youma was interrupted in it's attack when a voice that sounded like Konatsu shouted from the hole the ninja had been thrown through shouted, "MERCURY PLANET POWER, ACTIVATE!"

A similar light show, less impressive than Ranma's thanks to the lack of water, briefly stunned the two combatants. Konatsu leapt back through the hole wearing an outfit much like Ranma's but with heavy emphasis on blue throughout, rather than the red, white, and blue of Sailor Moon's outfit. "Mercury Ice Weapon!" called Sailor Mercury, summoning what for all the world looked like a katana from thin air. "Ready when you are, Moon-sama." said Mercury.

Ranma-ne-Moon grinned ferally and nodded. As one, the two new senshi charged the youma and attacked from both sides. Perversely, the monster simply grew two more arms and almost casually blocked every attack. After a minute of the constant attack and parry, Moon and Mercury both leapt back, this time side-by-side, eyeing their opponent warily.

Much to their frustration, it chose that moment to gloat. "You pathetic mortals!" it spat, "You shall never defeat me. I hold in my being the collective power and skill of a thousand masters of martial arts."

Mercury and Moon glanced at each other, nodding almost imperceptibly. There was one weapon, one attack that each and every martial artist since the closing days of World War II had drilled in to their heads from the very beginning of training that could take the martial artist down from well beyond the warrior's reach, and it could be wielded by the commonest of field-hands. Mercury dissipated the ice sword as Moon leapt forward to engage their opponent. Ranma began a blitzkrieg attack on the youma, throwing every move and trick in her arsenal at the creature. Every attack was blocked by an ever-growing set of arms, legs, and disgustingly enough, tentacles, but it kept the beast busy for just long enough.

"Mercury Ice Weapon," called Konatsu-ne-Mercury. The water in the air condensed at a terrific pace to form the weapon Mercury conceived of in her mind. Konatsu put the butt of the weapon up to one shoulder and balanced the rest in fingerless-gloved hands. "NOW, MOON-SAMA!"

Ranma leapt away and the sound of a long series of small explosions filled the dojo. She turned and took a ready stance, preparing her own attack as she watched Konatsu holding down the trigger of a fully-automatic rifle made entirely of ice. Ice bullets slammed into the creature and it howled in pain. Finally, the magazine on Konatsu's firearm ran out and the weapon evaporated back into water particles in the air. The monster was now weak enough, however, for Ranma to use her attack. "Moon Chestnut Strike!" she called, darting in at the monster. She began slamming her magically enhanced fists into the creature at well over 1,000 strikes per second. (Later, she would wonder why the youma could block her fists, but not bullets, but would chalk it up to a quirk of the youma.) The now weakened monster screamed in pain as the enhanced blows began knocking sections of it's body off, until it finally crumbled to dust, then faded to nothing.

Sailor Moon stood triumphant over the last wisps of youma dusts as the collected Qi dispersed back into the environment, and by extension, the people around them. She heard a couple of people stirring and Mercury spoke up, "We should go."

Ranma nodded, her red pigtail bobbing slightly. Without a word, they leapt through the hold Konatsu had made earlier by being thrown through it, darted out an open window in the next room, and began roof-hopping into the noontime city.

o0o0o

Prince Xavier spun around in the middle of the street, ignoring the angry blaring of horns from drivers. "Damn you, Moon Knight!" he muttered. "I shall find you, and when I do, you will pay for dishonoring me, you'll pay with your LIFE!" While the citizens of Juuban weren't as accustomed to random high-powered individuals shouting oaths in the street, they were used to youma rampaging through the town, so a nutter (if a handsom one) raving in the street was a minor annoyance at worst.

Finally the prince, to the great relief of the drivers and pedestrians on the street, stomped away back toward the school.

Had he investigated the nearby buildings where the trail had gone cold, he would have found the earstwhile Moon Knight in a nearby bathhouse. In a bath, actually, immersed entirely in the nearly boiling hot water Japanese bathers were so fond of. All living mammals need oxygen, however super-powered they are, so with a surge of water and an inhaled gasping breath, Usagi surfaced. "Is he gone? I…"

He was stopped not because of the suspected presence of the prince (who had, indeed, already left) but by the fiery glares of roughly one dozen women of various ages from 18 to 30-ish, all wearing nothing more than a towel, and often less. "Uhm…is there a probl…er…" The problem quickly reasserted itself when he spoke. When he darted into the bathhouse, he had followed the route he would have usually taken, that is, straight into the ladies side of the bathhouse. He hadn't even registered that he wasn't a she at the moment, nor had he really registered which side he had run into, as having a homicidal alien prince on one's tail tends to distract from small details like that.

Said small details (and some not so small) were growing progressively angry as these realizations hit Usagi like a ton of bricks. "Uhm…I don't supposed you'd believe it was an honest mistake?" he said with what he hoped was a winning, ingratiating smile.

All at once, the cry went up, "PERVERT!" and Usagi began to experience a new world of pain as buckets and soap and wet towels rained down upon him.

o0o0o

Ranma and Konatsu came to a halt on the roof of a noodle-shop. Not only was it a well placed location, with several exit routes to other rooftops, but it also had some chairs that the shop owner had put up there some time back to get away from the crowds on the street every so often. It had turned out to be a good hang-out spot for the roof-hoppers of Nerima and became a sort of neutral territory where they could go and not be bothered by challenges and fiancés and whatnot.

"So," started Ranma as Konatsu settled prettily into a chair, "Any idea what happened back there?"

Konatsu appeared to be in thought for a while, and then said, "I don't know how we were chosen, but you seem to be Sailor Moon, champion of Love and Justice, and I appear to have been granted the mantle of Sailor Mercury."

"Yeah," snorted the new Sailor Moon, "I guess. How'd it happen, though?"

Konatsu shook a tiara clad head, "I didn't see how you transformed, but I used my key…"

Ranma's brow furrowed, "Your key? Like to a door?"

"Yes," nodded the ninja, "It's an old-style key. I found it next to my futon when I woke up this morning." The kunoichi seemed disturbed, "My senses should have detected an intruder, but nothing woke me from the time I closed my eyes to when I woke up to Ukyo-sama's alarm clock." Konatsu once again bit a lipstick covered lip, "I have a question for you, though."

Ranma was tugging on the fuku, though she figured it was like the panties and bra and wouldn't come off without a dousing of warm water. She gave it up and shrugged, "Sure, what's up?"

"How did you know I'd make a gun with my spell?"

Ranma smiled, this time rather warmly at her comrade-at-arms, "You're a ninja. I figured you'd have something hidden on you. Didn't actually expect you to magic one up, but…"

Konatsu pouted, "Just because I'm a ninja doesn't mean I'll carry a gun on me."

Ranma simply smiled in a half-lidded way at the kunoichi.

Konatsu sighed, "Yes, I do. A small .38, one of my father's last possessions that I actually managed to keep from my step-family." A blush threatened to burn Konatsu's face, "It's not very ladylike…"

Ranma rolled her eyes and began feeling the tiara on her head. Her fingers reached the jewel and suddenly the fuku collapsed into the jewel on her chest, which dropped into her lap. She pulled out her shirt and checked inside it to confirm what her sense of touch already felt, a grin lighting up her face. "Oh, hey, cool! I don't need hot water to reverse the body armor!"

Konatsu made a 'tsking' noise as he mirrored what Ranma had done to collapse the fuku, resolving itself down to a brass key with the logo for the planet Mercury on it. "It's called a fuku." he corrected his fighting companion and sponsor. "The leader of the group should know these things."

Ranma's brow scrunched together, "Leader? Group?" she parroted.

Konatsu looked shocked, "Don't tell me you don't know about the Sailor Senshi?"

The part-time girl's face grimaced in confusion, "The Sailor who?"

Konatsu was torn between a giggle and a sigh as they started bounding across the roofs toward the Tendo Dojo. He began explaining everything he had learned while reading Senshi Beat at the newsstands.

o0o0o

Sailor Moon-ne-Usagi Tsukino-ne-The Moon Knight leaned against the door he had just slammed behind him. The leaning wasn't to keep pursuers away, but to simply lean against something. "Next time a boy wanders into the girls bath," he muttered, "I'll give them the benefit of the doubt!"

He slid down until he was sitting on the gravel of the roof he had evacuated to after ditching the angry mob of girls that had been chasing him. Surely, there couldn't be _anyone_ who'd ever had this miserable a day before.

o0o0o

Landing neatly on the Tendo porch just before Konatsu, Ranma sneezed gently. Being Ranma, her landing wasn't flubbed in the slightest, but it did earn her a mild reproval form her mother. Ranma excused herself and then thanked her mother for the warmed kettle just before pouring it over his head.

o0o0o

Now, more than through the entire day, Usagi wanted to be a girl again. He wanted to find Mamoru and snuggle in his arms and forget all the days troubles. He wanted to snarf down ice-cream with Rei and ask for help with her homework from Ami and just do all the girl things he always did.

Almost automatically, he reached his gloved hand to the circlet take down the sailor suit. The drop in magical power felt as normal to her as changing clothes. It was at that point that he realized that if his sailor suit changed back to his regular clothes while he was a guy, people would think he was an even _bigger_ pervert.

A glanced down showed that yes, the standard school-girls uniform reappeared…

…_on her girl body!_

Her sense of relief was so palpable that she began laughing and crying at the same time. The laughter had a hysterical tinge to it, but that was excusable given the day she'd been through.

After a few minutes her laughter died down and her tears abated down to a few sniffles. She did a quick inventory and confirmed as modestly as possible that yes, she was indeed fully female, her paired ponytails and odango were back, and her schoolbag had everything in it. She glanced around and realized with a start that she was only a few blocks away from her school. Checking her watch, she realized that the entire, mind-numbing day had actually only consumed a few hours and it was only just lunchtime.

Sighing, she decided to head to the school. Who knew, maybe Mamo-chan would still be there?

o0o0o

After arriving in time for a Kasumi prepared lunch, the pair of martial artists gave a highly edited description of the events that occurred at that morning's tournament. Whenever Ranma had started venturing into the subject of the Senshi, Konatsu would subtly pinch the other boy and tell that part of the story to make it seem as though Ranma and Konatsu merely _helped_ the Senshi instead of actually _becoming_ the Senshi.

Naturally, this confused Ranma, so when they finished lunch and Ranma got Konatsu out to the dojo, he asked the ninja about it.

"Oh," started Konatsu, "The Senshi live secret lives. Nobody, not even their families, can know their true identities."

"Uh-huh, why?" said Ranma increadulously.

Konatsu looked slightly downcast and sighed. "I know, I'd love to tell Ukyo-sama, but if they knew, they would be in danger of being attacked by youma."

"And youma are these monsters that've been showing up?"

Konatsu nodded, "I know you and I can take care of ourselves and protect our fam…your family and friends," Ranma scowled at Konatsu excluding himself from a family relationship, "But what happens if we're out fighting a youma and another one shows up looking for people who know the real identity of the Senshi?"

Ranma rubbed his temples. "Alright, alright, it's a secret. Man, who knew being a superhero would be such a hastle?"

o0o0o

Usagi's announcement of arrival on the school grounds turned out to be as ignominious as a sneeze. Nobody noticed, however, as most of the attention was focused on Prince Xavier's crew taking down the assembled wedding pavilion and the more spectacular sight of Mamoru in a shouting match with Xavier.

"WELL IF SOMEONE HADN'T SCARED HER AWAY, MAYBE SHE'D BE HERE NOW!" Mamoru snapped at the prince, a look of anger so fierce that Usagi normally only saw it when they were battling youma together.

"SOME FIANCE YOU ARE, YOU COMMON-BORN CUR! CAN'T EVEN KEEP TRACK OF YOUR BRIDE TO BE!"

Mamoru snarled, "MAYBE I JUST TRUST THAT SHE CAN TAKE CARE OF HERSELF AND ISN'T A CHINADOLL TO BE SHELTERED!"

They were interrupted by a small cough from Ami which, though not nearly at the same volume as the two arguing men, cut through their shouting like a diamond through glass. They looked down at the blue haired girl, who pointed at the school gates, directing their gazes at Usagi.

She couldn't exactly recall what happened next, but she did remember clearly being held in Mamoru's arms and crying, not actually saying what had happened and frankly not wanting to reveal the disturbing events of her morning.

o0o0o

Nabiki nodded at the delivery boy and handed him the payment for the package. She took it under her arm and walked back into school. She had purposely cut her lunch hour short for this purchase. Casually, she tore open the packing envelope and edged out the package contents to see the top five centimeters. Smiling at the confirmation that she did, indeed, get what she paid for, she slipped it back into the envelope and marched back into her classroom. Strolling easily through the aisles she came up to Junko's desk and casually slipped the contents of the envelope onto the girl's desk. Without stopping, she said aloud, "That's payment for the information you gave me yesterday."

As anticipated, there was a moment's pause as the other girl processed what Nabiki had dropped on her desk, then there was a sudden squeal of girlish glee. Junko bounced up and unabashedly hugged Nabiki, squealing all the while. Some of their classmates would in following years swore they saw the impossible as The Ice Queen of Fuurinken High wore a warm smile as Junko spun her around in a great bear hug.

One of the girls at a neighboring desk leaned over to see what the fuss was about.

It was a magazine. The title read, Senshi Beat: Special Edition, with a headline that read, _Is Sailor V Back, or is it a New Senshi?_ The cover art was a collection of what looked like police sketches of a Sailor Senshi, very similar to what one would expect to see of the regular Scouts, matched up next to current pictures of Sailor Venus and the old Interpol sketches of Sailor V. On the cover was a post-it with a handwritten note. It read, "Nabiki- Here's the first copy off the presses of the SE of Senshi Beat. I don't know why you wanted the editor's signed certificate that it's the genuine article, but it's tucked in the last page of the magazine. –Former co-student, Akihiro"


	9. Chaotic Interaction Pt 1

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_Disclaimer: Ranma ½ and Sailor Moon are properties of their respective owners who are not me. This is an original work by the author and any resemblance to the works it derives from is totally intentional and meant as a form of praise and flattery. No money is being made off of this in any way._

_Author's notes: You really shouldn't be reading this on the job._

**Chapter 8: Chaotic Interaction**

**Part 1: The Night Begins -or- No Need for New Senshi _Just_ Yet**

Minako sat at the cheerleader's table in her honorary, unofficial "School's Best Athlete" seat, fuming silently at the object in front of her.

It wasn't the title Senshi Beat. Indeed, she had given several exclusive interviews with the magazine's correspondents on occasion, and it made for great copy, boosted sales, and great PR for the Senshi. It wasn't the chosen motif of orange and white. The magazine had also done issues devoted to just her, and the ego stroke was heady indeed. Better high then marijuana...not that she'd ever done that, _especially_ not with a handsome mobster in France who she was trying to sedu...er, pump for information. It wasn't that the magazine was doing an expose on Sailor V's roll in eliminating The Syndicate. Old news as far as Minako was concerned. She didn't even care that there was a prominent place on the cover showing a cellphone snapped pic of The Moon Knight with the small headline, "Mystery Protector, or Male Senshi?" Indeed, she was hoping to land that particular hunk and express her...appreciation for helping to extract Usagi from a very unwanted marriage. It wasn't the opinion card peeking out of the pages that asked readers if a daily circulation would be fiscally viable, as opposed to the monthly or weekly schedules that had occurred in the past, owing to the much larger than usual amount of Senshi news and rumors that were floating about the last week or so.

What infuriated her was the large crime artist's sketch on the front cover, dominating the issue, and the big, bold headlines, "NEW SAILOR V CONFIRMED! Sailor V Breaks Up Yakuza/Occult Operation In Nerima District"

"Kima..." growled Minako. The cheerleader who had presented the magazine to their nominal leader shrank back slightly in concern. She had no idea why her friend was so angry the reports of a new Sailor V. "Kima," repeated Minako, "I need to borrow this magazine." Her words were slow and deliberate. She _knew_ that she was being foolish, but then anger knew no sense of reason. Receiving Kima's nod of ascent, Minako ignored the other cheerleaders who were staring in stunned silence, collected the magazine in a clenched fist, and stomped across the cafeteria.

o0o0o

Ranma, Akane, and Ukyo were staring at Kimi over their shared lunch like she had grown a third head. "What?" queried the new girl.

Ukyo spoke up first, "Let me get this straight, you want Ranma-honey..."

"...as a girl..." interrupted Akane.

Ukyo nodded and continued, "...to spend the night at your place..."

"...in a _slumber party?_" sputtered Ranma incredulously.

Kimi honestly didn't understand the problem. "Yeah, she...er, he hasn't seen, like, _any_ movies and that's just sad."

The three martial artists simply looked at the regular girl with poleaxed expressions.

Ukyo was simply confused. While, sure, she'd _heard_ that the whole movie...thing was supposed to be fun, but the one time she'd tried it she went to a martial arts flick. She could tell that most of the people in the film were rank amateurs, and where they lacked in skill they attempted to make up for in special effects. In all, she was bored out of her mind, walked out after the first half-hour, and demanded her money back. The popcorn had tasted like it was coated in axle grease as well.

Ranma was in an even worse predicament. He couldn't voice his concerns because he knew that Akane would take it the wrong way if he said anything about her being jealous of being with another girl..._especially_ if he was also a girl. Never mind that he never could figure out what she was so worked up about. Hiroshi and Daisuke always made noises about Ranma doing something called "girl on girl" with one of his fiances, but he honestly didn't understand what one girl sparring with another girl had anything to do with Akane's jealousy. Somehow, the notion that she was jealous of his girl-side's prowess or the skill of the other girl just didn't track, especially as, save for him and his other fiances, Akane was easily the best martial artist in the district. (When Ryoga wasn't passing through, but that was less often these days, so Ranma didn't feel like he counted.)

The author would like to point out that while Ranma wasn't a "geek" in the traditional sense, his lack of social graces, singularity of focus, and overall competence in his chosen field certainly qualified him as such.

Akane tried another tack. "Kimi...you do know that Ranma is really a boy, right?"

Now it was Kimi's turn to be confused. "Well, I haven't checked personally, but yeah..."

At that statement Akane blushed bright red. She valiantly pressed onward, "Well, even if he's a girl, he's still a guy."

As Nabiki walked past the group without stopping, Kimi tried to parse the sentence and failed, "But if she's a girl, then she's not a guy."

The conversation failed to improve as Kimi's calm sense of not-quite-logic continued to baffle and stymie Ukyo and Akane. Ranma simply sat, conflicted by the prospect of having a _non-_martial artist friend, something that he was rather lacking in, and his sense of self-preservation amidst the confusion of multiple fiances and girls that always wanted to marry him or at least just get him in the sack...let alone _guys_ that wanted to get him in the sack. He shivered briefly.

Ukyo noticed, "Ranma, honey, are you catching a cold?" she said hopefully. If he could at least fein sickness then the whole ticking time-bomb of a slumber party idea could be diffused before it began.

Akane picked up on Ukyo's idea right away, already thinking along the same lines. "Er, yeah! Ranma, you should really stay in bed if you're not feeling well!"

Ranma, clueless as always, said, "No, I'm fine, really! I was just...ah...thinking of c...c...cats!" Somehow voicing the thought of sleeping with guys, even out of disgust, seemed even worse than talking about his one weakness.

"Well, it's settled then!" chirped Kimi. Akane and Ukyo sighed in defeat as the New Girl (as they had come to think of her) continued her lunch in seemingly Kasumi-like oblivion. Both Akane and Ukyo knew that Kasumi was a more solid foundation to the Tendo family than she usually got credit for, which bode ill for their ability to argue just about anything with Kimi if the girl had even a portion of Kasumi's seemingly zen-like, rock solid resolve. "I'll just have my mom call Ranma's and they'll work out the details."

Ranma now understood the full import of what Kimi had led them to step into and promptly choked on, apparently, air or his own tongue. Akane simply smacked her own forehead with a palm as Ukyo collapsed back in exaggerated exasperation.

o0o0o

There was really ever anymore only one person that could cow Ami, a.k.a. Sailor Mercury. While that person was also blond, the person _attempting_ to buckle Ami's will was _not_ her once and future princess. Ami simply arched an eyebrow at the crumpled magazine's cover as Minako sputtered in obvious fury. The volleyball champion had yet to form a coherent _word_, let alone sentence, since she had stormed up to the table that Ami, Makoto, and Usagi were sharing.

Usagi didn't seem to be registering the spectacle as she merely picked at her rice balls, as oblivious to her surroundings as she had been since the previous afternoon after the prince went back to his ship in a huff.

Makoto would have found the whole scene funny if Ami, the only one of them that had hardly _ever_ gotten truly upset, weren't the apparent, if misplaced, target of Minako's ire. She had paused her eating for a bit to watch the event unfold.

After a moment of Minako's continued sputtering, Ami returned her eyes to her computer screen. This seemed to make Mina even angrier, which reduced the stream of half-syllables from the blond girl to guttural sounds, not entirely unlike growling.

By now Makoto was _really_ concerned. "Mina..." began the taller girl.

"WELL?" Minako practically shrieked at Ami.

This actually caused Usagi to glance up from her bento, but seeing that nothing had really changed, she returned to her...not-eating.

Ami rolled her eyes, took a calming breath, slowly blinked, then made eye contact with her irate teammate. "'Well,' what?"

Mina seemed to have regained her ability to use language, "WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME THAT..." Her ranting was interrupted by Makoto clearing her throat. Mina whipped around and shouted, "WHAT!" Makoto simply pointed.

When one is in as highly competitive society as Japan, one begins to develop adaptive means of doing business, and the Board of Directors of the Jubaan School District were no exception. One of the positive benefits to this could be seen in the lemonaide-from-lemons attitude that the Board had towards the rather high rate of youma incidents that Jubaan High School seemed to suffer. If the school was going to be partially demolished and require rebuilding every other month due to the high frequency of monster attacks, the reasoning went, why not take the opportunity to implement otherwise cost-prohibitive experimental building designs as a sort of test bed for the rest of the district, and indeed, for Japan? The improvements were already being implemented in other schools with high damage rates, like Jindai and Furinken.

One of the experimental 'improvements' that _hadn't_ caught on outside Juuban was the inclusion of a large, western style cafeteria. While this was explained away as being an unnecessary expense in ever-precious real estate that could be used for other purposes, the unspoken real reason was that even Juuban High's faculty were uncomfortable with the free mingling of students from many different classes. The faculty at first reassured themselves with the seemingly comforting notion that the un-Nipponese cafeteria would soon be destroyed in a monster attack and they could return the use of that section of the building to other, more reasonable, less free-thinking uses, but the danged youma always attacked _every other_ part of the school!

Mina found herself in the rather uncomfortable position of agreeing with the faculty as she realized she had nearly exposed herself as Sailor Venus to the entire school. She also joined the faculty in wishing a youma would attack the cafeteria _right now_, just to create a distraction from the embarrassing position she was in. She was the _star _of the _school_, she didn't _make_ a fool of herself in public! Her eyes darted about, looking for something, _anything_ that she could use to distract the people currently watching her. She settled on the magazine she was still clutching in her hand. "Uhm...why, uh, didn't you tell me...there was...er, a new senshi, Ami!" she said weakly, "You know how much I love to follow their adventures!"

Makoto was glad Mina was focussing on the crowd, by now largely ignoring the spectacle in favor of their meals, because even though Ami didn't seem to show it, Makoto could have _sworn_ she saw one corner of her genius classmate's mouth turn up in amusement.

Once enough attention seemed to have been drawn away from their table or deflected to other things, Mina whipped her head back around to face Ami, "What is this about another Sailor V?" she snapped.

Ami, still somewhat amused, nodded and began speaking in a muted, but business-like, tone of voice. "Indeed, it is confirmed that an apparent magical girl claiming the moniker 'Sailor V' did make a Yakuza bust in the outskirts of the Nerima district this morning at around 1:00 AM," the blue haired girl continued reading from her computer's screen, "The police were alerted to the bust only _after_ it had been completed, but they found plenty of evidence of apparent Occult activity, similar to the kind found by Interpol a few years ago in Europe in the wake of Sailor V's activity there." Ami nodded in Mina's direction at the mention of Sailor V's European exploits.

Mindful of the crowd, some of which might still be listening, Makoto thought a moment to phrase her question in such a way as to not reveal too much about their...night jobs, "You mentioned Nerima, you think this could be the same magical girl that...we heard about the other day?"

Ami had caught the hint from Makoto's turn of phrase. "No," she stated unequivocally, "The descriptions don't match. That magical girl had red hair and was short. This girl is apparently of medium height and has brown hair."

"Well, I want to know who she is, personally." Mina finally sat down and slapped the magazine on the tabletop.

"As the Senshi are notoriously _tight lipped_," Ami stared hard at Minako to drive the emphasis in her words home, "We may not find that out for some time, if ever." Ami continued to tap out commands into her laptop as Mina sighed heavily and slumped into her chair. "What concerns me more, however, is there seems to be a report coming down the wires about _two more_ magical girls in Nerima, one of them matching the description of the girl we were investigating earlier, both claiming the titles of Sailor Senshi."

_That_ statement roused Usagi from her stupor, at least enough to focus her attention on her classmate. Makoto sat up straighter and grew a concerned look on her face, and Minako lost some of her anger and leaned forward, speaking the question on everyone's minds, "What!"

Ami tapped a key to pause the feed of text on her screen from the newswires she had hacked into that morning when she saw the Senshi Beat headline on the magazines some of the other students were carrying. "It hasn't hit the major publications yet, the Beat hasn't even started writing the article for it, but it seems that, in addition to our mysterious Moon Knight," unnoticed by the others, Usagi blushed, "And our copycat Sailor V, there are two girls claiming to be Sailor Moon and Sailor Mercury. They disrupted a youma energy drain event, also in Nerima."

While Minako blinked in astonishment, Usagi and Makoto's brows furrowed in concern, "Some impostor again?" said Makoto, thinking of the time during the Beryl War that Ziocite impersonated Sailor Moon.

Ami shook her head slightly, "A possibility, but I don't think so. I do have log entries in my scanners showing signs of theumaturgic energy signatures on the same frequencies..." Makoto cleared her throat, interrupting her team-mate. Ami glanced up briefly with a blush, nodded, and continued, "Rather, my computer detected magic that nearly identically match the magic used by..." she glanced around to confirm they weren't being listened to, "Usagi and me with enough decay...er, showing enough distance to be from the site mentioned in the news feed."

Usagi set down her chopsticks and leaned back in her chair, "So..." the other three perked up, pleased to hear something besides a depressed mumble from their leader, "It sounds like we're going to have to visit Nerima sooner than we thought."

Minako and Makoto, now soldiers with a purpose, gained a steely, resolved look, and Ami nodded and began planning the trip.

o0o0o

To say Nabiki had a long night would be like saying the Middle East had a small terrorist problem; that is, a rather large understatement. Entirely unsure how one went about being a Sailor Senshi and unaware of a means to contact the existent ones, she had done what she thought a superhero does from the American comic books. Well, what little of said comic books she had actually read as a younger girl.

Nightly patrols, she had decided, were absolutely worthless. It had been sheer dumb luck that she had encountered the Yakuza operation when she did. One thing she did do that she didn't think her Juuban counterparts did was to observe the operation before-hand and determine the best plan of attack. The Juuban senshi, from what she had read, were more the type to charge in like crusaders rather than gather intel and plan. The observation had proved to be time well spent as it allowed her to seal off the exits, take out the guards, make an entrance that Batman would have been proud of, and take out the youma without suffering a single hit. Once their demonic counterpart had gone down and the Yakuza thugs had realized that they had no way of escaping, it proved to be a masterful bust if she did say so herself. And she did.

She had also discovered that her seifuku had a side benefit of replenishing her body nicely. Apparently it's repair mode also allowed her to go without sleep and still be in top physical form.

This didn't do a thing for _mental_ rest, however, and the mere two hours of sleep, not _nearly_ enough for REM sleep, let alone the deeper stages of sleep where the mind really does it's own repairs, had left her, well, a bit cranky.

On the list of, "Short-tempered and ill mannered things that Nabiki never did but Rama and Akane got a '10' from the Romanian judge for," she had; yelled at Ranma for being a jerk, stolen the paper from her father for no other reason than she felt grumpy, stormed into the school in a high dudgeon, punched Kuno, got sent to the hall for snapping at the teacher, and was now striking terror into her fellow students as she merely stomped her way around the school grounds during lunchtime.

Nabiki was _not_ pleasant to be around when tired and cranky.

Compounding the problem of fatigue was the incessant beeping that seemed to be following her around. Every minute or so, a short electronic 'bip-bip' would go off. It seemed to be coming from her right, but whenever she turned to look, the source of the sound was clearly not there. This was the primary reason for the aforementioned stomping about the school grounds, so she could find a place that would allow her to try and discover what was making the noise. Passing Ranma and company without acknowledging them (they were far too involved in discussing something involving the new girl), she rubbed her temples to attempt to stave off the headache that she felt was oncoming. As she made it about 100 feet past the tree where Ranma, Akane, Ukyo, and Kimi they were hanging out with were eating (for once, Nabiki didn't care what was causing Ranma fits), she heard some rustling in a nearby bush accompanied by a whiny voice saying, "Oh, Akane, why don't you love me?" in a way that was obviously intended to be quiet and stealthy.

While she would normally have simply walked by, even in her irritated state, the infernal 'bip-bip' chose that exact moment to sound. What little patience she had mustered in the approximately 60 seconds since the last time it went off was gone in an instant. Fatigue and frustration combined to push her temper to the boiling point and she thrust her arm into the bush, grabbed a fistful of boy's uniform, and pulled out Gosunkugi. "STOP BEING CREEPY!" she barked at him, then promptly dropped him unceremoniously before resuming her stomping.

Gos righted himself appearing to be near tears. Or near fainting. Or near Ryoga-level depression. One could never really tell with him. He failed to adequately dust off his uniform and high-tailed it into the school when he noticed Akane looking in his direction with a slightly shocked expression. That Saotome had witnessed his latest indignity was lost on him, as was the equally shocked expressions on Ranma and Ukyo's face and the puzzled expression Kimi wore. It was also lost on him that they were gaping not at him (they barely registered his presence, as usual) but at Nabiki as she disappeared around a corner of the school.

o0o0o

When Ranma and Akane got home, their relief that Mrs. Saotome wasn't home to receive the call from Kimi's mother was derailed by the fact that Kasumi was hanging up the kitchen phone after completing arrangements to have Ranma appear at the girl's house at 4 pm, ready for an overnight sleepover. While Ranma's color drained from his face at what his mother might do to him for participating in a girly activity like a _sleepover_, Akane was nearly apoplectic.

"Kasumi, what are you doing!" she gasped.

Kasumi's face echoed an internal confusion, "I'm not sure what you mean, Akane..."

Akane's mouth, while having a _bit_ more control than Ranma's, still tended to run like a freight-train without brakes when it came to certain subjects. One of which was Ranma's presumed innocence or lack thereof where it came to women in general and any woman but _her_ in particular. "He's enough of a pervert without anyone encouraging him!"

This disengaged Ranma's terror-of-potential-sepuku circuit and engaged the far more comfortable and familiar balk-at-Akane's-presumptions-of-his-behavior circuit. "Hey!" he groused, "Whatdya mean, I'm enough of a pervert!"

As Akane responded with her usual style of retort and the volume growing slowly louder, Kasumi began to prepare Ranma's things for that evening, humming a gentle tune. Some things were easy indicators of certain relationships, and though the arguing had been...less since the failed wedding, it still warmed the eldest Tendo sister's heart to see the two younger teenagers express their affection in the only way they knew just yet.

As the two bickered about assumed affairs and 'just who's the hentai here, anyway?' (that was a new one that Ranma had come up with when he started to figure out _exactly_ what Akane was accusing him of only a couple weeks prior, it still derailed Akane a bit), Kasumi gently prodded and steered them as she worked around them. The consequence being that when Kasumi announced that Ranma had better get moving or he'd be late, they glanced up from their argument in complete surprise to find themselves in the genkan, Ranma's bag neatly packed by Kasumi and over one of his shoulders and a 'thank you' gift in one hand. Kasumi calmly offered him a glass of cool water, which took him a moment to figure out why she was offering it to him. With a blush, he splashed a bit over his head and instantly became the shortest person in the room. Akane's anger having been completely dispersed by the shock of the complete change of scenery and embarrassment for not having noticed, she allowed a bit of genuine concern to creep into her voice as she said to her fiance without looking at her, "Just...be...I don't know...nice. And safe."

Ranma was looking down at the floorboards, an odd mirror of Akane's current position, merely murmured a wordless reply.

Kasumi gently cleared her throat, and at Ranma's look waved the smaller girl off. Ranma slipped out of her geta, flipped on her outdoor shoes in a way that only a martial arts master would be able to pull off, (in under two seconds and without using her hands) and slipped out the front door.

o0o0o

Usagi sighed as water dripped offer her uniform, hair, and bag. A group of younger children from the nearby grade-school were enjoying the afternoon with, apparently, a water balloon fight and had pegged her not once, but _four times_ in rapid succession. The boys had quickly scattered in realizing that they had hit a high-school girl rather than their intended targets of each other, and this did little to improve Usagi's mood. Shaking her arm weakly to attempt to preserve the dryness of the inside of her bag, she continued her trudge homeward.

Her journey was interrupted a few moments later, not by anyone splashing her with further moisture, but by a face. Specifically, a face on a girl wearing the same uniform as the one for her school. A face that, though she wasn't in any class that Usagi could remember, was oddly familiar. The girl was a few yards off yet, and was staring intently at a copy of Senshi Beat at a nearby news stand. Over the girl's shoulder was a long and bulky bag, rather like one would expect to see someone carrying on a skiing expedition in addition to the usual schoolgirl's briefcase. The girl was also a bit taller than one would expect, though not as tall as Makoto, and wore her long straight black hair in a simple braid that went down to the middle of her back.

Some...thing...that Usagi had never had in her psyche before began mentally undressing and sizing up the girl, though as soon as she realized where the train of thought was leading she smacked her own forehead a couple of times. _Gah!_ she thought,_ Turning into a guy yesterday must have REALLY screwed me up!_

Usagi also realized she'd been staring, and though the other girl hadn't seemed to notice, decided to look elsewhere. Unfortunately, she happened to look straight at a sight she was hoping to _not_ encounter, Mia Asigura. Said girl had fortunately not seen Usagi yet, as she was talking to a very well built (and a little bit cute) boy with a bandana, backpack, and large umbrella. They seemed to be discussing directions, as Mia would occasionally point down the street and the boy would repeat the gesture, though not necessarily the same way Mia pointed.

Not wanting to be seen, Usagi turned sharply around, only to find herself facing a short-haired girl in the uniform of a nearby private school. What was the name? _Seito Sannomiya! That's right!_ Rather than acknowledge Usagi, the girl simply stared at the scene of a regular busy street, then began what Usagi could only assume was a bit of a self-deluded rant.

"Such behavior for plebian masses. They have no concept of the evil that lurks all around them." The hairs on the back of Usagi's neck stood on end. While she didn't recognize the girl on sight, there was _no_ mistaking the tone of voice or haughtiness in her demeanor. _Mega-girl! Damnit, what __**is**__ this? Pick on Usagi week?_

Before Usagi could beat a hasty retreat, Mega-girl's alter-ego grabbed her by her wet clothing and pulled her close in a pseudo-friendly embrace. "People such as yourself know, however, that there is true evil in the world! _You_ know that everyone should be on their guard at all times! _You_ know that at any moment an evil monster could attack innocent bystanders, such as yourself, at any time! _You_ know this, because _you_ are Mega-girl's Number 1 fan! And I..." the girl gestured at herself, "Reiko Honda, am the President of Mega-girl's fan club!"

_GOOD GOD! SHE __RUNS__ HER OWN FANCLUB!_ Usagi's disgust with the girl ratcheted to an all-time high.

"Uhm.." began Usagi, "I know what you think is going on, but I really need to go..."

She was interrupted by a loud, "HAH!" _Aw, crap!_ she thought as she saw that Mia had noticed her, "So, Usagi, didn't feel important enough by ruining my dreams so you had to inveigle your way into someone's fan club?"

Reiko looked down her nose at Mia, "Hmph," she snorted, ignoring the boy with the bandana who was gaining a look of deja-vu. "A common born cur such as yourself couldn't possibly understand. Vigilance must be constant against evil, and Usagi here has shown that she is a true warrior in the heat of combat by coming to Mega-girl's aid," Reiko indicated herself, though she was clearly _attempting_ to pretend that she was talking about someone else, "And though Mega-girl doesn't _need _anyone's assistance, she is virtuous and kind and humble enough to know that those of lesser capability must surely show themselves capable in _some_ fashion."

By this point the two were gaining a bit of a crowd, including the oddly familiar girl who was now examining Usagi in a similar way that Usagi was doing to her earlier; that is, trying to figure out why the Usagi was familiar.

"Er," began the bandana-clad boy, "If someone could just point me to the Unryu farm..."

He was ignored as Mia focussed her attention on her new apparent rival, "Usagi? Warrior?" she snorted, "She's _such_ a warrior that she runs away at every chance she can!"

At this point Usagi began to struggle in earnest to get free. Reiko's grip on her seemed unbreakable, however. "So now," said the snooty girl, "You must resort to lying to back up your churlish ways. A finer example of a brave and concerned citizen cannot be found in all of Tokyo."

Usagi had just spotted her worst nightmare rounding the corner in the form of, not just Mamoru, but _all_ the remaining inner Senshi in civilian garb, when there was suddenly a piercing scream.

o0o0o

Ranma was roof-hopping in the general direction of Kimi's place when Konatsu joined her part-way. "Ranma-sama! You're going to a slumber party? I'm so jealous!"

Ranma's eyes rolled briefly, "Yeah, I don't know _how_ I get myself into these things." Just then Ranma noticed a pack on Konatsu's back. She stopped on the edge of a roof. Konatsu hit the breaks and tried to turn to hide the pack, but they both knew that he was caught. "What," queried Ranma, "Are you doing with _that_?"

Konatsu blushed a bright red. "Oh, nothing..." Ranma simply crossed her arms and gave the ninja a half-lidded stare. Konatsu fidgeted with the bag behind his back, gently toeing a pebble, until he broke down. "IjustwantedtoseeifIcouldjoinyouatthe..."

Ranma waved frantically to stop Konatsu's jumbled words, "Slow down!" she ordered.

Though it didn't seem possible to Ranma, Konatsu blushed harder, "I, um, just wanted to see if I could join you at the slumber party."

Ranma sighed. "Well, with you there, Akane can't accuse me of doing anything hentai, so it's OK with me. We'll have to ask Kimi's parents if it's OK, though."

Konatsu bounced on his toes in glee as he clapped his hands in an _incredibly_ girlish move.

_Oh, yeah_, thought Ranma cynically as she resumed her roof-hop, _This__ night's going well._

o0o0o

Nabiki managed to just miss Ranma's leave-taking by a mere minute, not that she was in any particular hurry to wish him well for a simple overnight jaunt. While she may not have much respect for the Saotome boy-cum-girl in many arenas, being able to take care of himself was one thing that Nabiki admired about him. No, she was presently more preoccupied with the beeping noise that had been following her all day. That the sound was somewhat muted by a pillow was small comfort in that she was the only one to seem to hear the damn thing, all her classmates seemed completely oblivious to it. Of course, given that each student, especially in her circles, tended to cary at least one electronic device around and the beeping was _only_ following Nabiki meant that they might have heard it and simply mentally blocked it out as a, "Not my ringtone, not my problem," issue.

She'd been huddled in her bed for five minutes (she knew that 'cause the damn thing had gone off five times since she dived under her pillow) and was actually about to start crying when it went off for a sixth time. In pure frustration, she shot her arm out in what she felt would be a vain attempt at grabbing for the source of the electronic chirp, so was surprised on many levels when her hand actually closed on something.

With a gasp, she sat up, leaving her hand stationary, and looked to see her arm disappearing into thin air. With a startled, "GNAH!" she yanked her hand back, intensely relieved to find that it was all there and in one piece. Suddenly reassured of her sanity, (or so far as one _can_ be reassured in as loopy a place as Nerima) her frustration and low-level panic fled as she now seemed to have a source to her day long torment. Narrowing her eyes, she focussed as best she could on the square foot of air that her hand had disappeared into and thrust her arm forward...

...nothing. Her arm was hovering there right where she had put it, no sign of vanishing or invisibility. Her frustration picked up again, just a bit, but she was comforted by the evidence of her own senses from moments before. Leaving her arm in place, she counted down from 30, not entirely sure how long she'd been taking since the last chirp.

She made it to 17 when the chirp went off again, once again nearly directly to her right. Without turning, she lanced her arm to the side, and felt a surge of triumph when her hand wrapped around something hard and apparently plastic, though it could just as easily been one of the rarer metals, like a brushed titanium. Slowly, she turned her head to see that, once again, her arm was disappearing into thin air.

This time Nabiki kept a grip on the mystery object and pulled slowly, mindful of anything that might cause resistance. She felt none, and slowly a thin, somewhat boxy object, colored orange, was revealed as she pulled it from the space her hand had vanished into. As she eased it completely out of the mystery space, she got a closer look at it.

It appeared to be some sort of clamshell designed device, rather similar to a small laptop common to Japanese students. It was colored orange, and where the manufacturer's logo would normally be was the symbol for the planet Venus. She gently opened the clamshell and was rewarded with the sight of two screens, one of which quickly showed a keyboard that began rapidly cycling through various languages and character sets before landing on a common Japanese layout. The opposite display showed what was apparently a wake-up process, also cycling through languages until it displayed in modern Japanese, "Alert: Two (2) warnings indicating youma breach, possibly dormant. Display on regional map? (Y/N)"

Nabiki's heart leapt into her throat as a broad, sharklike smile crept onto her face. _This_, she thought_, will make things MUCH easier!_

o0o0o

Gosunkuki sulked in his room. Or just slouched. Or he could have been excited, were it not for the fact that he wasn't dreaming about Akane. Again, hard to tell.

He was perusing, yet again, a tome on ancient and dark magics (copyrighted 1996 by an occult hobbyist's club) and murmuring the spells under his breath. He wasn't actually completely speaking any of them, and had tried them all at one point or another with no success, so he felt perfectly safe in speaking the incantations, even partially.

Imagine his surprise when a dark energy began coalescing in his room and a foul voice began speaking, "You presume to harness the powers of the afterlife and evil, the path of your destruction has been chosen."

Gosunkugi's pathetic screams, unheard by his parents over the sound of the TV, were swiftly snuffed out.

o0o0o

Six magical girls, a technowizard, a guardian, and a martial artist all turned to the source of the scream to see a somewhat portly woman (by Japan's standards) having her energy drained by a spherical youma with a grotesque face and a pair of long, segmented arms tipped in grasping, bony claws. The Senshi, save Usagi only, and Momoru swiftly made use of the now panicking street crowd to duck down an ally to begin their transformations. The bandana-clad boy whipped his umbrella off his backpack and charged straight at the creature, followed shortly by Mia, who had activated her armor via a control on a bracelet that Usagi hadn't noticed before. Usagi was somewhat pleased to see that Mia wasnt so vindictive toward Usagi that she wouldn't use her tools and abilities for good.

Usagi, however, was still trapped by Reiko. The girl sometimes known as Mega-girl said, "Curses!" under her breath. To Usagi she said, "Fear not, Usagi, I shall get you to a safe place then summon Mega-girl!" So saying, Reiko swept Usagi up in a fireman's carry and bounded to the _top_ of a nearby building, which happened to be a coffee shop, ran across the roof, then jumped down to the alley behind the building. "You should be safe here," said Reiko as she put Usagi down, "I shall go put out the call for Mega-girl, the one true magical girl of justice!" Holding a dramatic pose for a moment, Reiko leapt back to the roof of the coffee shop. After she had moved out of sight, Usagi could hear the girl's activation phrase (something to do with "The power of song"), a bit of flashing light, and some truly grating, high-pitched laughter that sounded like it belonged in an anime featuring a particularly nasty villainess.

_Well_, Usagi grudgingly admitted, _She's pretty good even without her power armor...I hope I can get the training that old man promised me..._ letting the thought trail off, she dug out her ginzouishu. Staring at it apprehensively for the first time...ever, she muttered to nobody in particular, "Please work right..." and thrust her arm into the air. "Moon... Prism... Power... MAKEUP!"

By the time she knew something strange was going on, the transformation had already begun.

o0o0o

Kimi's parents, it turned out, were not home. They had apparently chosen to take the opportunity of their daughter having company to go on a date, something they hadn't done in a few years, apparently.

Kimi was thrilled to meet Konatsu, who Ranma had briefly described as a ninja during their post-youma ice cream binge. Ranma hadn't mentioned Konatsu's true nature, and was at a bit of a loss to explain about his..."condition."

Kimi didn't seem to care one way or another, and was taking the kunoichi's femininity at face value. Seeing her crossdressing friend able to totally relax and just "be a girl" for the first time ever, Ranma simply didn't have the heart to break the news to Kimi.

Things were going swimmingly until Kimi insisted that they change into their pajamas. Ranma and Konatsu were at first concerned that Kimi would begin undressing right there, but she instead opted to go to her room to change, leaving the two "boys" alone.

Ranma took the opportunity to see what Kasumi packed for her, and sure enough there was a pair of pajamas. She held them up and was partially relieved to see that Kasumi had either bought or made (one could never tell with clothes provided by the eldest Tendo girl, save for her home-made clothing tended to be a bit higher quality than the store bought stuff) a pair that was rather large for her girl form with elastic around the waist to cinch down automatically, but would just fit her guy form and stretch to accomodate. They'd be _perfect_ if it weren't for the fact that the print was a bunch of cute little horses with excessively large eyes and frolicking about. Ranma stuck her tongue out at the pattern, "Bleh..." she groaned before realizing that while she was doing this, Konatsu was fidgeting nervously. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"Uhm...I...don't have any pajamas." He cast his eyes to the floor, "I...usually sleep in my ninja suit."

Ranma sighed, _I __really__ gotta talk to Ukyo about increasing his salary._ "Here," she said, "You can use these, they oughta fit. I usually sleep in my boxers and tank-top anyway." So saying, she tossed the pajama set to her friend and proceeded to pull of her shirt.

Konatsu squealed with glee when he saw the print, "My Little Pony print pajamas! Ranma-sama you have such wonderful taste!" Ranma rolled her eyes at the ninja's enthusiasm and continued to strip down to her underwear.

o0o0o

Usagi stared down at himself. That he had once again switched genders while transforming to what was _supposed_ to be Sailor Moon only compounded the latest development.

He idly wondered if all men's dress shoes were as comfortable as the pair he now wore, though given that he'd tried similar high-heels to the pair he normally wore as Sailor Moon and found them to be rather _un_comfortable to even stand in, let alone do all the things they normally did as Senshi, he somehow doubted that notion. The smartly tailored black pants gave the visual appearance of being formal dress slacks, but Usagi could feel from the way it moved as he inspected the latest mayhem associated with his life as a superhero that the cut and style were much, much more suited to heavy, active combat than regular slacks. He wore a jet black vest, which seemed to glimmer and shimmer even though there was no sequining to the fabric and when looked at straight on seemed to be regular cloth. The visual impression was one of looking into a simulacrum of the night sky. He wore over the vest an open-front formal jacket, giving an almost old-world military look to the ensemble. His hands were covered by white gentlemen's gloves that practically glowed in comparison to the rest of the outfit, and his shirt seemed to be of the high-collar, button-up, tie-less variety. He caught a glimpse of his own reflection in a nearby window and turned to study it. Most noticeable at first glance was the form-fitting white mask, rather similar to the superheroes she saw in American manga, instead of being a large ballroom masquerade style mask like Tuxedo Mask's. Taking in the whole look, however, he could see a figure that would make just about any girl's heart flutter. The only thing this uniform had in common with the previous Moon Knight uniform he'd sported yesterday was the single long ponytail that ran down the length of his back. Turning his head slightly, he saw where his ginzuishou went to, as it was part of the tie that held his hair in the ponytail.

His introspection was interrupted by what sounded like Sailor Venus shouting, "DAMNIT, MEGA-GIRL, GET THE HELL OUTA THE WAY!" and an explosion.

Usagi shook his head to clear it and reminded himself, over Mega-girl's response of, "Fools! I had this fight well in hand before you appeared!" that there were civilians to protect regardless of whatever ways his transformation went haywire.

Leaping to the top of a building, he saw a few missiles, most likely from Mia's suit, arcing into the sky and exploding harmlessly on their own. He made it to the edge of the roof to see the bandana-clad boy completing a charge against the youma by slamming a fist into it's bulk. It struck with such force that Usagi could hear the clap of a small sonic boom just before the sound of the impact of human flesh on the stone-like surface of the youma. To Usagi's surprise, the boy didn't seem phased by the hardness of the creatures flesh, and indeed, the youma's armor cracked a bit.

The creature howled in pain and slapped the boy into a building. Apparently satisfied that it had dispatched that particular nuisance, it pointed it's arms at Mia, it's hands spinning like bizarre drill bits, energy coalescing for a shot.

Before Usagi could move to save her rival, though, Tuxedo Mask, leapt in, scooped up the girl, and started a leap just as the monster's shot hit the ground where Mia had been standing. The explosion altered their trajectory a bit, and Usagi noted with pride that his beloved managed a perfect tumbling roll, holding Mia gently but firmly.

A bit of jealousy stirred in Usagi as he saw a smile and blush creep onto Mia's face, but weapons fire drew her attention back to the youma. Mega-girl was making a strafing run around the youma and firing some sort of crystal at it. Once the crystal reached the half-way point to it's target, it would fragment into four separate crystals, which would impact against the youma (usually) and explode. The creature roared again and started _rolling_ toward Mega-girl, it's ponderous girth cycling under it's head, shoulders, and arms like some strange, gigantic ball-mouse.

All of this happened in the approximately five seconds since Usagi had made it to the rooftop ledge. Usagi watched Mega-girl jump out of the way of the youma, but the monster's apparent inertia kept it going...

...straight for Mamo-chan! The Prince of Earth apparently didn't notice the creature bearing down on him as he stood. Mia had enough presence of mind to shout a warning before skittering to the side, but Usagi could tell that wouldn't be enough to save his boyfriend (_again_ with the weird thoughts he'd have to file away for later) and leapt into action.

Literally leapt, as he jumped off the building, and landed by Mia. He shoved her further out of the way and darted at Tuxedo Mask, tackling him out of the way of the rolling youma. Usagi felt the familiar flush of happiness as he and Mamoru slid to a stop in front of a flower shop.

They didn't notice the Senshi scattering to avoid being human-shaped bowling pins, save Mercury, who was, as usual, a bit out of the line of fire. Consequently, Mercury was able to watch the mysterious new stranger, or perhaps not so new given the likely hood that this was the Moon Knight in different garb holding Tuxedo Mask in ways that Sailor Moon would _not_ like to see another man holding her future husband and blushing with a smitten smile on his face. The implications brought a blush to Ami's face as her intelligence and imagination carried through where the scene would likely go in any of the Yaoi fanfics that...Ami would never read! Ever! Certainly not! There were better things to do with one's time than watch...er, read about two handsome men pressing their firmly toned bodies together in pure man-man love that...

Ami shook her head to clear the mental chafe away and glanced at her computer. She noted that the tactical analysis showed that Mega-girl, the martial artist boy that was helping them, and Mia were all regrouping and paying no attention to the two men, which was just as well, as a quick glance showed Mamoru was...not pleased.

o0o0o

Ranma was beyond glad that the pizza had finally arrived. She was so far beyond mere "glad" that words such as "ecstatic, elated," and, "joyful" ceased to be adequate. It wasn't merely that it was food and it had arrived, as Kimi had prepared a rather nice assortment of snacks that was voluminous enough to take into account the aquatransgendered's voracious appetite. She had seen Ranma eat, after all. It was that it provided a very welcome break from the inane "girl talk" that Ranma didn't think she'd _ever_ get into...not that she wanted to. It was girl stuff, after all.

Once the awkward introductions had been made, Kimi and Konatsu had bonded in ways that guys only barely comprehended and was universal to women the world over. They discussed _makeup_ and _boys_ and (once Kimi found out that Konatsu actually liked girls) the latest yuri manga and anime, which Ranma couldn't last five minutes in watching because of the ultra-saccharine nature of most of them. Kimi had point blank refused to start any movies until the pizza had arrived. She had explained that it was rather bad form to interrupt a movie once it had started for any reason, even if that reason was food.

So when the food had arrived, Ranma was not only the first one to the door to relieve the delivery-man of his burden, she insisted on bowing profusely in thanks. After the door closed, Ranma heard her two companions giggling. She turned to them, "What's so funny?"

Konatsu pressed the pseudo-breasts he always wore together to form a rather deep, fake, pajama-clad cleavage. He started bowing exaggeratedly, displaying the "cleavage" proudly, "_Thank_ you, pizza-man-sama! _Thank_ you!" he chirped in a mocking tone.

Ranma turned scarlet as she realized what the other two were implying, grabbed the pizza, and stomped to the television. "Are we gonna start watching these movies now?" she groused.

Kimi and Konatsu continued their giggling as the joined Ranma. The latter just sulked, but couldn't hide the bit of smile that creeped onto her face.

o0o0o

Tuxedo Mask had never, ever had the displeasure of being groped. Ever. By anyone. Well, so far as he could remember, anyway. While the Moon Cat's memories may have been swiss cheese, his was cheese _paste_ with all the times his mind had been messed with. The notion that it might, just maybe, have happened before was absolutely zero comfort as he realized just _where_ the man he now suspected of being the Moon Knite was clasping tightly.

Mask's teeth ground together as his anger index shot upwards faster than it ever had. "Baka..." he growled.

The Moon Knight's eyes popped fully open and he lost the silly smile. His boyfriend did _not_ sound happy.

"...HENTAI!" shouted Mamoru as he swung his fist with all the force he could from his awkward position.

Which turned out to be quite a bit of force, it turned out, as Usagi flew across the street, through the front facade of the coffee shop, through the front counter, and clanged into the steam machine. "HOT!" exclaimed the Moon Knight as he lunged out of the spraying hot water and steam. Now glaring at Tuxedo Mask, she howled back, "WHAT'D YOU DO THAT FOR?"

Whatever Mamoru's answer was, it was interrupted by the stocky martial artist boy flying backwards between them, obviously not of his on volition. Tuxedo Mask darted in the direction of the youma, Moon Knight aimed for the boy. Usagi got to him as he was picking himself up from the rubble of a wall. The girl-turned-boy gasped as the other teen simply shook the dust out of his hair and flexed a shoulder. "Are you...alright?" Usagi asked, apparently redundantly.

The boy nodded. "I've taken harder."

A rumbling sound caused them to turn to the fight, the youma had broken from the primary combat and was once again charging them, being the only two that weren't currently delivering painful attacks. They both automatically took up martial arts stances as the monster charged. "Name's Ryoga, by the way." said the boy.

"Moon Knight," replied Usagi with a nod. With that, they charged, seeming to move in coordinated teamwork even though it was the first time they fought together. Ryoga once again experienced a sense of deja vu as he fought beside this apparent stranger. There was something hauntingly familiar about the fighting style...

They both made strafing punching runs as they passed the creature. It bellowed out a roar as both boys delivered damage, Ryoga delivering far fewer punches than Moon Knight's but with far greater effect.

Suddenly, a shrieking sound met their ears as superheated plasma in a ball blasted through the air and impacted with the Youma. Now taking a serious beating from multiple vectors, the youma decided to flee. The combatants all turned to see a girl in what looked to be Silver Millenium era armor and what looked to be a plasma long-rifle nearly as long as the girl was tall standing on the lip of a nearby building. Her bulky helmet covered her eyes, a chestplate didn't cover her whole torso but, in meeting with the usual standards of the Amazonian magical girl culture, exposed her midriff. The girl was clearly still wearing her school uniform, which Usagi and the rest of the senshi guessed was for their school. The skirt, however, had been completely replaced by an armored codpiece, of sorts, and instead of regular shoes, the girl was wearing somewhat bulky boots. The reason for the bulk became clear as she jumped off the lip of the building and rockets kicked on to slow and control her descent and cushion her impact. "I'm glad I'm not too late to join this party." she said as her boots fired up again, turning into a sort of hover skate as she headed after the youma.

Mega-girl took the opportunity to speak, "Indeed. I like this girl's style, I may just have to make her my sidekick." She put her thumb and forefinger up to her lips and blew a whistle, and a robotic...thing that looked like a surfboard with a dogs head or a dog with a compressed body arced down from _somewhere_ and whipped by the group. Mega-girl jumped up on it skater style and followed the mystery gun-toting girl.

Mia simply activated her rocket boots in a similar manner as the latest combatant and jetted off after them.

The Senshi and Ryoga weren't standing still. They leapt to the rooftops and followed the rumbling and roaring that the youma was giving off. Tuxedo Mask merely glared at the Moon Knight before leaping after them. Usagi swallowed the hurt he felt and leapt to a rooftop to join his friends and fighting companions.

o0o0o

Ash stared up at the light, his captors taunting him, only a few he might call allies cheering him on. The water, dripping off his dirty clothes and seeping into his boots, was the least of his worries as he heard the splashing about of the...thing that was in the pit with him. He knew that if something didn't happen to change the situation, and soon, he was screwed.

Then, as if a gift from the gods, a cry of, "GREAT ONE!" echoed down into the pit. He looked up to see the old man heave something down to him...it was his chainsaw! He leapt into the air, as high as he could...

"Oh, please! His form was totally off. You can tell they did something to make him jump higher." grumped Ranma around a mouthful of popcorn.

"Ssshshshsshh!" hissed Kimi before stuffing another handful of popcorn in her mouth.

...and thrust his arm up, catching the stump at the end of his forearm into the socket he'd made on the chainsaw!

Konatsu giggled, "That's a trick!" Kimi threw a kernel of popcorn at him.

Ash pulled the ripcord and the customized tool roared to life. He turned to face the ghoul they had thrown him in with, and with his own roar of triumph, sliced the creature in two.

The soldiers who captured him weren't going to let him go easily, though. He heard the chains rattle, a clanking sounded, and his last means of escape started rising from the pit. Thinking quickly, he yanked his belt from his pants and snapped it like a whip around the chain currently ascending from the stinking bog they tossed him in. After wrapping twice around the chain, it held in place as he felt his boots leave the water with a splash.

"Oh, my god! This movie's so bad!" remarked Ranma. 

Kimi stuck her tongue out at Ranma. "It's _supposed_ to be bad, that's what makes it good." The trio giggled at yet another tacky incident on-screen. Ranma grabbed another slice of pizza and acknowledged to herself that maybe this movie thing was pretty neat.

o0o0o

Where the pink roses came from, Usagi wasn't sure, but they did a nice job of keeping the Youma from doing it's rolling charge when thrown like darts at the big round ball-shaped part. Tuxedo Mask, once again showing irritation that The Moon Knight was stealing yet another part of _his _repertoire, but just as ready to admit when something was effective, started perforating it's bulk with his own red roses. The plasma shots from the mysterious stranger were devastating, even if they did heal rather quickly, as she kept to the periphery of the action and sniped using the powerful weapon she carried. Mia and Mega Girl were bringing their more powerful attacks to bear, slamming the creature with missiles of various types. Ryoga, when he could _get_ in close (which wasn't as often as the martial artist would like) would simply slam his fists into the thing, leaving dents. The senshi's attacks, while doing less initial damage as the others, were _not_ healing, and so were proving to be the most effective attacks as the battle became one of attrition. Fortunately, they had managed to pin it down to one spot that was low on civilians, and those that had been there had long since fled.

The creature suddenly grabbed Ryoga, who was once again trying for one of his powerful punches. Mercury, who had her visor on as part of her S.O.P., gasped as she saw the creature begin to draw energy from the martial artist, and was about to panic when a pained roar lanced the air. To the surprise of everyone, the creature dropped Ryoga and moved away before lashing out at Venus, who leapt to the top of a nearby building and shot it with a Venus Love and Beauty Shock.

Moon Knight leapt in and scooped up their non-protected temporary team mate. He groggily shook his head as Usagi leapt away from the main battlefield toward Mercury. "Why did it stop?" he asked.

Mercury, fortunately, didn't worry about who she was talking to. She had already pulled out her computer and was running through equations and analyses that would have made her team mate's heads swim. "I think..." her eyes widened as Ryoga returned to his feet and scrubbed his temples with his fingers to increase the energy flow, "It is! This man's energy is damaging to the Youma's physiology!" she pointed at Ryoga as she looked from the martial artist to her screen. "I need to study this..."

"Not now, Mercury," barked Jupiter, who was bouncing past them, firing lightning strikes as she strafed by them.

Ryoga looked confused, "What's she saying?"

Mia had overheard just enough that she could bounce over to the group as she fired the last of her missiles at the creature, "She's saying that your energy is poison to the thing!"

Usagi's head tilted as she saw Ryoga grin toothily and crack his knuckles, "What are you thinking?"

Ryoga didn't respond directly, but spun on his heel and darted at the creature. Mercury gasped as the dark, sickly energy that was normally the byproduct of energy that had already been harvested and processed from humans built up in the martial artist. "HEY, MONSTER!" he shouted, "EAT THIS! SHI-SHI-HOKODAN!" The other warriors, save the mystery girl only, gasped in shock as a comet of black, sickly qi slammed into the thing. For her part, the mystery warrior was focussing more on aiming her firearm, and she pulled the trigger as Ryoga launched his attack, striking Ryoga's target just before his shot of toxic energy in almost the same spot. Unfortunately for the youma, it's qi handling systems were primarily automatic once it was severely injured, so the raw wound, coupled with the massive number of wounds it had incurred over the course of the battle meant that the shi-shi-hokodan had been absorbed almost immediately.

Mercury had about a split second's more notice than the rest of them as heaving, pulsing spiderwebs of corrupted energy lanced throughout the created creature, followed by a nausiating display of boiling flesh and bubbling energy, just before the thing exploded with a wet _SPLORTCH!_

Mars and Jupiter immediately lost their lunch from the overwhelming stench. The remaining warriors worked hard to not losing their own meals as wet youma bits dripped off them. Mars managed to recollect herself enough to say, "I'm going home, tell Moon the trip to Nerima can wait."

The group was spared having to hear Ryoga attempt to direct them to Nerima by "a shortcut he knew" due to the fact he was trying to evict youma goo from his ear by smacking the opposite side of his head while tipping it.

"Speaking of Moon, where is she? I know she was here, I saw her before the battle started..." Venus trailed off as she tried to brush some sort of youma guts off her leg without smearing it and failing.

"Indeed," spoke the stranger, "I am actually searching for her as well."

While this caught the attention of the senshi, the others were shaking off the goop and heading out. Mia checked the power level on her suit, grumbled, then kicked on her rocket boots and skated away. Mega Girl, looking for all the world like she wished she were anywhere else, simply called in her surfboard dog and disappeared over the rooftops. Ryoga looked around, trying to find his backpack, and disappeared down an alley. (Much to Mercury's disappointment and everyone else's secret relief, attempts at following his trail vanished after about 25 feet. They did _not_ want another youma defeat like that one.)

After checking their surroundings and determining that they could speak freely, Tuxedo Mask turned to their stranger. "What are you looking for Sailor Moon for?"

Mercury noticed the stranger's visor acted much like her own as information flashed across it as she stared long and hard at each of them. She paused as she looked at The Moon Knight, getting obviously conflicting information (the same conflicting information that Mercury got when she scanned the latest male "senshi") then shrugged and then addressed the group. "I'm here to placed Sailor Moon under arrest." she said.

"WHAT?" exclaimed the group.

"You'd better explain yourself!" snapped the Earth prince.

"Yeah!" exclaimed Usagi, as shocked as the rest.

The stranger remained unfazed by their exclamations, "I am the last Enforcer of the old Moon Kingdom. My charge is to arrest Sailor Moon for abandoning her post during the final days of the war against Queens Beryl and Metallia."

_Chapter 8 continues in Part 2: Night of the Living Deadites -or- Not Your Every Day Enforcer_

\/p> 


	10. Chaotic Interaction Pt 2

_Disclaimer: Ranma ½ and Sailor Moon are properties of their respective owners who are not me. This is an original work by the author and any resemblance to the works it derives from is totally intentional and meant as a form of praise and flattery. No money is being made off of this in any way._

**Part 2: Left 3.5 Dead -or- Those Who Don't Know History Can Make Really, Really Dumb Mistakes**

Usagi stood alone in the dim light of the setting sun, her ginzouishu glinting from her hand as it caught the last rays of Earth's star as she examined it. For all the good it really did her, she wasn't an expert in the thing by any means. Sure, she knew what it _did_, but as for _how_ it worked, she might as well be looking at a supercomputer. Intellectually, she knew that she should take the thing to Ami, but that would mean explaining exactly what was wrong with it and having to explain why she didn't go to the genius-girl right away the first time the gender-switch had happened. She thought that if she had to explain that she was changing into a guy she'd just die of embarrassment.

Speaking of Ami, she and the other senshi, plus Tuxedo Mask, had headed off after The Enforcer when, instead of answering their questions, she had simply stated that as they weren't the Queen or Princess of the Moon Kingdom, she didn't answer to them and just took off. Usagi had used the opportunity to simply hang back, waiting until she, then a he, could no longer see or hear them, then ducked into a nearby alley. After hesitating a moment only, Usagi dropped her Moon Knight costume and was again relieved to find herself as a girl again. She had wandered for a bit, lost in thought, until she found herself in an alley, ginzouishu in hand, pondering her transformation item and symbol of her ancient and future royalty. Sighing deeply, she turned it in her hand again. It was like coming home from school to find your house completely repainted jet black on all surfaces. Sure, it was your house, and it had the same family and furnishings, but it was uncomfortable, unfamiliar, and disturbing all at once.

Her contemplation was interrupted by the chirp of her communicator. Startled slightly, she fumbled the crystal, caught it, and sighed as a second chirp went off. She dug into her stuff-space and pulled out the communicator. "Moon here."

Sailor Mars' angry voice barked from the tiny speaker, "Moon, where the hell have you been? We've been looking all over for you and had a youma battle!"

Usagi flinched slightly, "I was...at Naru's place." she was glad for the small screen as it hid her blush from lying quite well. "I had to have my communicator on silent."

"Then who was by the subway entrance? We all saw you..." she trailed off as someone, Sailor Venus from the sound of it, interrupted her with a quick statement. Mars snapped back to the person off-screen, "We all saw her pigtails!" Another statement from Sailor Venus and Mars huffed, "OK, fine, we didn't see enough." She turned back to the screen, "You're off the hook for now...hey!" The view on the screen shook and jostled. Usagi blinked in surprise, then smiled as she saw Jupiter's face.

"Listen, we've got a problem. There's some chick in old Moon Kingdom armor who's claiming she's here to arrest you. We were trying to get more info, but she took off before we could. We lost her somewhere in a warehouse district, so she could be anywhere in Juuban by now. Mercury's trying to...what did you say you were doing?" Sailor Jupiter said this last to someone obviously behind the communicator she was holding. After an apparent reply, Jupiter focussed on Usagi again, "She's trying to get a bead on the energy signature of the girl's weapons and armor, but so far we've turned up nothing."

Usagi, pretending ignorance, grunted in acknowledgement and said, "I'll...keep an eye out for anything like that. I gotta go." Not bothering with Jupiter's surprised reaction to her abrupt termination of the conversation, she switched off the communicator, snapped on the 'silent' switch, and shoved it back into stuff-space.

She turned her attention back to the ginzouishu. She felt angry, betrayed, and confused, but mostly just frightened at something that had been a reliable aid and, well, almost a silent friend throughout the last four years of her life. It was also the only real link she had to her first mother, Queen Serenity the First.

Her lips pressed into a line and her eyes went from tearful to steely, she gripped the diamond tightly, thrust it into the air, and shouted out, "MOON ETERNAL MAKEUP!"

For a moment, her transformation lit the area more brightly than the setting sun.

~o0o0o~

Not a whole lot of full sized graveyards exist in Japan. This is expedience, for the most part. Island nations are generally faced with either burying their dead at sea or they resort to cremation. In terms of respect, either route works fine for honor-based societies, though the desire of the living to want to hold on to _something_ does create a tendency toward cremation.

There is still, however, a thriving trade...if it can be called such...in actual full-bodied burial. The wealthy, especially, tend to favor having actual boxes and holes in the ground into which their bodies will be interred.

Just such a place felt the unwelcome steps of one Hikaru Gosunkugi. Rather, the _body_ of everyone's favorite failed Goth stepped onto the grounds of one of the several cemeteries that dotted the Nerima city-scape. Gos' mind had been checked out and the body was under new management and wasn't forwarding messages or mail.

The malevolent entity that responded to Gosunkugi's not-summons stretched forth his borrowed hand and muttered an incantation.

Successfully, the author would like to point out.

Which should tell the reader just how well and truly screwed the residents of Nerima were going to be.

~o0o0o~

Sailor Moon looked down at herself.

Yes, _her_ self. She was a she again! She was a girl again!

Howling with pure, unadulterated relief and joy, she bounced up a pair of facing walls and began roof-hopping across the shops of Juuban's shopping district toward the harbor. Curiously, through the nearly drunken haze of happiness she was feeling, she became aware of...something. Something _powerful_ inside her, just waiting to be used. Feeling like nothing could go wrong, she simply decided to let it loose.

She gasped in excitement as suddenly her speed nearly doubled. She was peripherally aware that she was now leaving a sonic wake behind her as she plowed through the air so fast she could feel it resisting against her. A small twinge of guilt tugged at her as a window pane shattered behind her, but as she was nearly a full kilometer away by the time her brain even registered that the noise she heard was a sheet of glass being shattered by the pressure waves of her passage, she realized that she wouldn't really be able to do anything to help with a simple broken window. 'sides, if she wasn't around, they couldn't exactly chew her out, now could they?

After another exhilarating twenty kilometers or so she stopped. Rather, she skidded to a stop, leaving a bit of a furrow in the tar and gravel roofing material of the building she happened to stop on.

She was grinning like a maniac and gasping, more from the adrenaline rush than actually being out of breath, when she realized she wasn't alone on the rooftop.

~o0o0o~

Ranma sighed heavily.

"Don't move." admonished Konatsu sharply.

The tragically bad zombie movie had ended, and rather than go on to the next movie right away, Kimi had suggested they raid the make-up stash and do makeovers. Konatsu had, naturally, jumped on the suggestion straight away. This led to Ranma, the _least_ femininely inclined of the slumber-partying trio, to become the mannequin for the other two, who were showing themselves to be _very_ proficient.

Kimi began commenting on Konatsu's technique, "That's _fantastic!_" she spouted. "I can't believe how much you bring out her eyes like that!"

Konatsu beamed, "Oh, yes! It's basic technique at the parlor my step-mother owned. One has to find ways to properly accentuate the best features. Covering up the things you _don't _like usually just accentuates it."

Kimi nodded sagely. Ranma supposed she, like most girls, learned such a fact through some sort of girl-bonding that they did when guys or guys-who-weren't-guys-at-the-time weren't around. Kimi continued, "Oh, but I _must_ know, where did you get the inspiration for the hair?"

Konatsu began to pat down surface powder to keep the make-up in place and give it a "dry" look. "I visited Ranma-sama's home and met her mother." Ranma desperately fought the urge to sneer at being called 'her,' only barely winning. "She has the most gorgeous do...and well, I thought, 'like mother, like daughter.'" Ranma was, indeed, wearing a style of hair very much like her mother's. She was _very_ surprised what the judicious use of a curling iron could do.

Ranma permitted herself an eyeroll, which was largely ignored by the other two as Kimi smiled brightly.

Then, Ranma and Konatsu felt **It**.

Konatsu carefully put down the powder puff and began studying his surroundings carefully, as though for the first time. Ranma had suddenly leapt to a crouching, almost feline stance, opening her senses up to the world around her.

Kimi was taken aback by the sudden change in their behavior. "W..." was all she got out before Konatsu put a finger to her lips to silence her without even looking at her.

He spoke in a low, quiet voice that is quieter than a whisper, "Ranma-sama, where?"

The other martial artist merely prowled a bit, then seemed to glare at the wall for a moment. She then pointed. "West."

Konatsu nodded, and suddenly leapt into a blur of motion. Kimi, now frightened, remained still as the small house suddenly seemed to become oppressive. She heard a series of sounds that she momentarily realized were doors and windows closing and locks being engaged. Not a few shutters being drawn as well. Ranma was pacing around Kimi while this was going on, her power and grace humming in the air.

Konatsu returned as suddenly as he had departed, startling Kimi into making a small squeak before she clapped her hands over her mouth. "The house is secure, Ranma-sama." reported the ninja.

Ranma nodded. "Kimi," she turned to face the girl, "You _stay here_." The voice of command was clear and wasn't open to discussion. Kimi, now _very_ frightened, nodded vigorously.

Soundlessly, the two warriors glided to the back of the house, Konatsu undoing his lock on a back window and opening it. Ranma slipped through like mercury, her companion close behind. The kunoichi closed the window and secured it with a bit of cord and a ninjitsu knot and both martial artists leapt to the rooftop.

~o0o0o~

Back at the Tendo Dojo, Kasumi was humming gently, though in the last few minutes she would pause, making an almost questioning sound, as she went about the task of cleaning her kitchen. She couldn't have told anyone exactly _what_ was disturbing her normally tranquil demeanor, though it had only begun a few minutes earlier.

As she slid some pans into their respective cupboards and closed the doors, she found a curiosity that was a bit closer to home and much more identifiable. The cabinet doors didn't close all the way. This was often an indication that Akane had been at it in the kitchen again, but this time Kasumi knew her sister hadn't been anywhere near the kitchen for several days...and besides, none of the other indicators (like the HAZMAT team not making a visit) were present.

Curiously, she knelt down and opened the cupboard, emptying it's contents out carefully onto her so-clean-you-could-eat-off-it floor. As she was pulling out a large cookie sheet, a piece of paper came out with it. Curiously, she detached it from the cooking tray and read it. As she did so, her brow crinkled up and she glanced from the note back into the cabinet. After re-reading the note, she peered deep into the cabinet, her head tilting as she found something that didn't belong with the other dishes.

~o0o0o~

Usagi whipped her head around, finally spotting another figure on an adjacent rooftop. Recognition dawned even as she realized she was in for even more of the ridiculous chaos that seemed to be cropping up in her life these days.

"Sailor Moon," intoned The Enforcer with an authoritarian voice, "You are hereby under arrest for crimes against the Moon Kingdom and will be held pending a tribunal before the Royal Court."

Now Usagi was _sure_ something strange was going on. "Wait, aren't _I_...hang on now, _what_ crimes?"

The Enforcer started walking towards Moon, who took a tentative step back, subtly falling into a stance that would give her several different options, whatever the situation called for. Not that she was conscious of this, her mind was racing a mile a minute trying to figure out what she could have done wrong.

The Enforcer spoke again, "Your crimes are abandoning your post during the invasion of the moon by the forces of Queen Beryl and for failing to fulfill your duty as guardian to the Queen and Princess, resulting in their deaths."

Now Usagi was _really_ confused. Surely an Enforcer of the old kingdom would know what happened... "Hey, I think we need to clear some things up..."

"Explain it to the tribunal," snapped The Enforcer, un-shouldering her firearm and aiming it at Moon from her hip, "You will come with me _now_."

Usagi normally didn't have much of a temper, what she _did_ have was generally reserved for her brother, but her nerves had been frayed of late, and there was just a bit too much weirdness going on for her, resulting in her temper being rather shorter than usual and much easier to bring to the surface. "Hey!" she snapped, "You don't get to tell me what to do!"

The Enforcer didn't reply with words, she tucked her firearm under one arm and pulled out what looked like to metallic bars joined by a short chain from her belt. Usagi's brow creased as she tried to figure out what the odd choice of weapon was supposed to do, until the Enforcer threw it at her. She raised her arm to block it and one of the metal bars struck her wrist. Instantly, a glowing white arc of energy sprang up around her wrist. With a gasp, she realized that the device was a pair of restraints; handcuffs to be precise. While Sailor Moon was taking this fact in, the Enforcer closed the distance between them and grabbed her free wrist. "Hey!" snapped the magical girl, and she did a twisting crouch that threw the other girl into a slide across the roof.

While the Enforcer stood, Usagi tugged at the chain, only to realize that it was well and truly fixed to her wrist. She glared at the newest stress vector in her life and barked, "Take this off _now_!"

~o0o0o~

Ranma and Konatsu landed in the middle of the street having just finished a roofhop. They weren't concerned that they were in the middle of the street, for there was no traffic whatsoever. While this wasn't necessarily unusual for Japan, it only served to heighten the tense mood the two martial artists were experiencing.

Ranma squinted her eyes and peered into the darkness. Konatsu simply found his center and extended his senses. As one they turned to an odd sound, a sort of rustling. Assuming battle-crouches that would compliment the presence of each other, they prepared themselves as the sound maker approached.

To their complete surprise, it was a person. A business man of average height, apparently walking with a limp. They couldn't yet see his face as the shadow of darkness wasn't quite penetrated by the streetlight, but they did see that while one leg was moving, the other was...dragging. There was something else off about the man as well. His clothing seemed more dirty than one would expect, even after a long day at work. His arms hung limply at his sides and he seemed to be breathing in a heavy, gasping cadence.

"Sir...?" ventured Konatsu, "Are you all...ri..." The ninja's question died in his throat as the figure stepped fully into the light. His face was pasty gray and white, his eyes were completely clouded in sickly yellow, and his hair was clumped and matted. His jaw hung slack, making his breathing sound like the quiet whisper of summer breeze over the standpipe of a bamboo clock. The rhythmic thump-thump of the man's limp lent a bizarre credence to the macabre simile.

Ranma swallowed the bile rising in her throat back down as they began hearing more heavy, sickly breathing and shuffling from the shadows and several more figures join the first in the dim streetlight. "This is just getting out of hand!" she muttered angrily.

The aquatransexual and the kunoichi glanced at each other and nodded, the same thoughts running through their heads. They began the almost-dance of a martial artist tactically retreating while pulling out their transformation items.

~o0o0o~

The Enforcer, if she was at all intimidated by Sailor Moon's order, didn't show it. Instead she calmly stated, "No matter how far you run, no matter how far you go, the Law of the Moon shall be enforced."

At the word "run," Usagi's mental gears kicked in. Remembering her run not five minutes before, she smiled wickedly and said, "Well, you'll just have to catch me, then." So saying, she took two steps back to the nearby roof's edge, then calmly jumped off.

The Enforcer darted forward to the edge, looked down at Sailor Moon's already fleeing form and snarled an oath. Leaping off the edge herself, she kicked on her boots as she descended, breaking into a skating chase.

Usagi's smile tore into a vicious grin as she picked up her speed, tapping into that source of power that she didn't quite understand. Her world started to blur as once again started pushing the sound barrier. As she leapt over an intersection with cars passing through it, her momentum carrying her well over the traffic, she chanced a backward glance and a small part of her was glad that the Enforcer had managed to keep up.

~o0o0o~

Ranma, now garbed in her Sailor Moon "armor" (as she liked to call it, as it was WAY more girly than she'd normally be caught dead wearing and calling it armor lessened the ignominy, even if just in her own mind) punched another zombie in the jaw. Like the previous three before it, it's jaw and lower portion of it's head crumpled with a disgusting "squelch!" Fighting a wave of nausea, she shook the gore off her fist and turned to face the next shambling horror. That the zombies all seemed to congregate on her and Konatsu was small comfort, it meant that there were likely no civilian casualties while they were busy playing whack-a-zombie.

Assessing the situation, she realized that Konatsu, a.k.a. Sailor Mercury was not fairing as well as she, her arms being pinned by two zombies each, her Ice Katana broken off at the guard and pushing off a zombie with a leg currently being grappled by a torso with arms, it's head and legs having been already cleaved off by the newest Senshi. Sailor Moon's surprise at her friend's overwhelmed state was just enough of a distraction for two of the faster zombies to grab her arms and start pinning her in a similar fashion.

Now straining with fear, Moon whipped one arm around, hurling the zombie away. Unfortunately, this left her other side open for two more of the foul creatures to latch on and pin her further. Now immobilized, she was nearly helpless as a refreshed wave of undead piled on, a couple of them biting the air uncomfortably close to the exposed flesh of her arms, legs, and head. A particularly disturbing zombie, half it's head missing from one of Ranma's earlier strikes, leaned uncomfortably close, it's jaw poised open to bite her face. It's rancid breath nearly caused her to vomit the pizza she had earlier. A detached part of her mind was morbidly amused that the only thing she could think just then was that it'd be a damn shame if she _did_ hurl, 'cause she _really_ liked the pizza.

A flash of metal spun across her vision and through the neck of the zombie, severing the head and causing it to fall to the side, the rest of the zombie collapsing in a heap on top of two other undead and allowing her some freedom of movement. Wasting no time, Sailor Moon heaved herself back up to a standing position, used her now free arm to begin peeling off the goulish creatures and started kicking and punching wildly. (or as wildly as the best martial artist of a generation ever _does_) Freed of her captors, she glanced around and noted the presence of a third warrior fighting the zombies, now helping Mercury. Her blade sheathed, the Moonlight Shinobi was instead using a bo to dispatch their attackers. Catching each other's eyes for a moment, Moon's confused expression relayed her unspoken question as they both beat and bludgeoned the undead. In response, the Shinobi merely cocked her head to the side. Ranma, following the direction of the nod, saw an opening in a gate on the street, opened, but the entry arch was covered in kanji. In a flash, she realized it was the entrance to one of the local Shinto temples. Still not quite sure what the Shinobi was trying to tell her, but taking a guess anyway, she picked up a zombie one handed and launched it at the portal. The Moonlight Shinobi, showing the lightning quick reflexes of a true martial artist, spun the bo, catching a zombie by the collar of it's tattered clothing and hurled it on a similar trajectory.

What happened next shocked both Moon and Mercury as the zombie Ranma threw passed over the threshold. The creature practically disintegrated, it's parts simply flying apart as the evil magics were banished by the blessings on the holy site. The other zombie, however, did not. In fact, it stopped looking like a zombie at all. A business man, beaten and bloody, collapsed in a heap as whatever spell was on him dissipated.

Gasping, Sailor Moon and Mercury ran to the man's prone form, the Moonlight Shinobi following close behind. After they passed the archway, the zombies stopped following them and merely waited. Mercury inspected the man, checking his injuries.

"He's bruised, but otherwise fine," the kunoichi announced. So saying, Mercury turned back the collar of the man, a festering bite mark seeming to evaporate in front of their eyes, the blessed ground purging the dark mark.

Moon's brow furrowed, "The punch I gave him should have killed him..." she shuddered, "Why isn't he dead?"

The Moonlight Shinobi spoke up, "The illusion on this victim must have had a component that shielded him and kept physical attacks from causing too much damage. Your magical attacks would likely have caused significant injury, perhaps even killing him."

Mercury's countenance fell as Moon looked sick. "Oh...dear..." murmured the blue clad senshi.

"Do not worry, the first wave of zombies that attacked you were truly undead," proclaimed the Shinobi, "I observed from a distance before joining the battle." Moon could have sworn the ninja smiled behind her mask, "The illusion is...less effective from a distance."

Mercury now looked like someone had granted her a pardon from Death Row. Moon's vissage hardened. "That means this was a trap!" she growled.

The Moonlight Shinobi nodded as Mercury looked up in curiosity, "What do you mean, Moon-sama?"

Sailor Moon's fist bunched up. "If we were the target, then the only way to 'defeat' the zombies would be to 'kill' them, which means we would be murdering innocent people unfortunate enough to..." she waved at the man, uncomfortably aware that some of the purpling bruises were shaped like her fist.

Mercury gasped at the implications, adjusting the man and casting a nervous glance at the zombie hoard building up at the shrine gate. "...and it looks like we _were_ the target_."_

"I would suggest," said the Shinobi, "That if one or both of you are the target, then this is likely not the only place the zombies are appearing."

The two senshi's gaze met as their thoughts whirled.

"The dojo!" exclaimed Moon as Mercury gasped out, "The restaurant!"

When they turned back to their ally, their eyes met only an empty patch of ground.

"Damnit!" muttered Moon, "That's the _second_ time she's done that to me!"

~o0o0o~

Usagi, a.k.a. Sailor Moon, felt the air whip by her ears more than she heard it. Her mind simply was tuning out the roaring sound that near-supersonic speeds will produce. A grim smile lit her face as she carefully picked her path through Tokyo, avoiding the more densely populated areas and silently thanking Ami for the foresight to make sure the team memorized the carefully prepared maps of the city for planning future battles.

Suddenly, she felt a flare of heat and light ripped through the air to her left. She realized that The Enforcer wasn't going to simply let this go as a chase. The smile turned into a slight frown as Sailor Moon realized that she was going to have to go on the offensive to keep damage and civilian casualties to a minimum. Slowing her pace a tiny fraction, she moved to the side just enough to bring her up parallel with the mystery girl. She yanked off her tiara and started to call out, "Moon Tiara...!" but before she could finish, The Enforcer pulled out a smaller weapon, a pistol of some sort, and pulled the trigger.

Her instincts reacting faster than her conscious mind, her hand flipped the tiara, now a glowing disk, out so the flat of the disk was facing the enforcer, her arm arcing to intercept the plasma projectile. Nearly floored by her own reaction but not willing to look a gift horse in the mouth, she kept the spinning magical tiara out as a small shield, blocking another bolt from the pistol.

The Enforcer responded by throwing the strap of her longarm over her torso and yanking out another pistol. Bolts tore at Usagi with horrific speed that she found herself blocking with, not necessarily _ease_, but certainly much greater agility than she had given herself credit for.

Those who had business out on the streets of Tokyo's business district were treated to one of the fastest and most intense running firefights anyone had ever seen as the magical girl and the armored girl ripped through the streets, plasma pulses arcing between them and splashing against buildings and the occasional parked car.

So preoccupied with their dance, Sailor Moon didn't realize where they were until The Enforcer cursed loudly and suddenly braked. Usagi turned to see where she was going and was startled to see that they had arrived at the oceanfront. Her eyes going wide, she realized that she would have no way of stopping before plowing into the water.

Then, she had...an idea.

~o0o0o~

The Ucchan was quiet. The two new senshi breathed their own quiet sighs of relief as they ran past, making the fastest possible time for the dojo, the restaurant happening to be just slightly out of their way between the temple and the Tendo home.

Their relief was short lived as they approached the Tendo's, however. A hoard of zombies, similar in size to the one that had congregated around the temple were amassed around the front gate. Not even trying to fight their way through, the two sailor-suited warriors simply leapt over the mass by bouncing on heads and shoulders. Finally leaping over the wall, the two were startled to see no zombies on the property whatsoever.

In fact, it was positively serene.

Blinking in surprise, the two senshi carefully surveyed the yard. Eyes alighting on the front door to the home, Moon saw the eldest Tendo girl tentatively peaking out, a push broom hesitantly held out in a somewhat defensive manner. Seeing the two newest arrivals, she jumped, and her expression went from frightened to pleased.

"Oh, my!" she exclaimed, suddenly rushing out and bowing deeply before Sailor Moon-ne-Ranma. Apparently not noticing the redhead's poleaxed expression, Kasumi continued, "I wasn't expecting guests such as you! Welcome to my humble home, Sailor Moon!" The mentioned senshi gulped and nodded, and Kasumi, still bowed, turned to Konatsu, "And you as well, Sailor Mercury!"

As the kunoichi turned senshi blushed from head to toe, Ranma realized that Kasumi was practically giddy. It was hard to notice on so calm and tranquil a person as Kasumi, but when you live with someone long enough...

"Kasu..." Moon was interrupted by a stern glare from Mercury. She rolled her eyes and continued, "Er, miss? Where is everyone else that lives here?"

Slowly standing, seemingly reluctant to stop bowing to her visitors, Kasumi replied, "Oh, Father and Mr. Saotome are out visiting some local businesses..." Ranma's mind mentally translated that to, 'going to get drunk off their ass,' "...my little sisters are out working on some projects, they didn't say what, Mrs. Saotome went to pick up some ingredients for a special recipe for breakfast..." ..._probably for a hangover cure,_ Moon's internal translation provided, "...and Ranma is off at a sleepover with a friend." Sailor Moon grimaced as she remembered where she was supposed to be that night.

Ranma-ne-Moon turned to face the gate, more to hide her expression from Kasumi than anything else, "So any idea why these guys are here?" she waved at the gate, which stood open, but none of the zombie hoard were crossing the threshold. _Just like the temple..._thought Moon.

As Kasumi was shaking her head 'no,' a voice cut through the night air, penetrating the eerie calm. "SAOTOME, YOU WILL RELEASE AKANE TO ME, NOW!"

Sailor Moon stood silent for a moment, her mind processing the voice and remembering who sounded like it.

Then, she slapped a palm to her face, her other fist bunching in frustration as she said, "Oh, hell, not him!"

~o0o0o~

When one has An Idea, they tend to form A Plan. The problem with plans (so the saying goes) is that they tend to only last so far as one's first encounter with an opposing force. Such plans are usually known in military parlance as "strategy," and are generally not viewed favorably by those implementing said strategy, as the implementors and the strategizers are generally not the same person.

Occasionally, though, one gets An Idea in the midst of a situation where the threshold of the encounter with the opposing force has already passed. Generally such ideas are quickly discarded as, at _any_ time, they are charitably called "batshit insane." When an idea has taken enough root to form A Plan, no matter how insane or hastily cobbled together, and further implemented, it's done by the only person who _can_ implement said plan, as there hasn't been enough time to spell it out, explain it, codify it, make sure everything is done in triplicate, then delegate it with extreme prejudice. This _also_ has a name, it is called "tactics." Good tactics of _any_ stripe are impressive, awe inspiring, and demand respect even from one's worst enemies.

They are still, however, batshit insane.

Such was the sudden Idea, which formulated into A Plan, that Usagi concocted in the approximate 1.2 seconds between her realization that she was about to hit the water and the time she actually met it. The origins of the Idea were many, but the primary sources were a surprisingly good American anime her brother was fond of and the realization that if she slowed or stopped she'd wind up _in_ the water and rendered the moon-rabbit equivalent to a sitting duck.

The other primary source was an absolutely goofy American import wherein the main character quite frequently said, often at the worst times and in completely contradictory circumstances, "Let's speed it up!" That said character was played by an actor who would later star in a creepy sci-fi that still had her checking the back of her neck for a plug every so often and who did similar things as herself (e.g. - Saving the world) only cemented in her mind that this hastily thought up, totally batshit insane, seemingly counterintuitive Idea might actually work.

Leaning into her run, she pushed herself to run even faster.

~o0o0o~

Possessor-type youma, the author would like to note, are not actually very strong. As point of fact, only the extremely _rare_ possessor-type youma are capable of posing any real threat to, well, anybody. This is entirely due to their nature as incorporeal creatures. Having no solidity or any "real-ness" makes it difficult to threaten with so much as a broken lollipop stick, let alone anything more damaging to a body. In fact, most possessor-type youma can't even penetrate the minds of the average person. They need an "in," if you will, some weakness that may or may not be obvious. Of course, the youma penchant for needing a _strong_ life force to feed on tends to eliminate most drug abusers, alcoholics, etc., those with the obvious bad habits that would invite an incursion into one's mind. Indeed, these creatures are pretty low on the youma totem pole, to the point where they may as well be the dirt the totem pole is buried in. Just as the totem pole can't stand without the dirt, however, youma need a foothold amongst the human realm, and the possessor-type youma are usually the only ones who can get the job done.

Gosunkugi, at first glance, doesn't seem the type to be targeted by a youma of any stripe other than as "cannon fodder." He's generally un-noticeable, he hasn't got any particular strength about his frame, and his features rest comfortably on the low end of 'average.' Completely without significant threat to any of the nominal Nerima Wrecking Crew, he exists primarily in the shadows of the other people who usually take the limelight; indeed, other students who aren't high-powered martial artists, associated love interests, conniving manipulators, or any sort of crossdresser also tend to overshadow the somewhat gothy boy.

It should be noted, however, that the poor soul is also rather spry, passably good with a camera, somewhat stealthy (in that there's just something about him that keeps people from noticing him), and has a focus of desire that keeps him going on a task even when others have given up.

He has also gone toe to toe with Ranma Saotome and done what not even Ryoga, Prince Herb, Kuno, or Ryu Kumon have been unable to do. Granted, he had a supersuit that leveled the field a bit, but where a "normal" person would have likely wet their shorts when being stared down by a demigod of physical and spiritual power, Gos stood the line and held his own...right up until the suit self-destructed.

Such was the personality that the possessor Youma was dealing with when it possessed Gos. Consequently, the imperative that the possessed boy go out and create all sorts of deceptive havoc with the specific intent of creating misery for all involved, both short and long term, said imperative got...re-written.

Thus it was that the normally unnoticed and unnoticeable Gosunkugi stood behind a hoard of "zombies" just beyond the Tendo gates. Such a personality as his would NOT be deterred from his primary goal, _especially_ given the amount of real, raw, working power at his fingertips. That Gos was mentally checked out didn't matter, his subconscious had essentially embedded his primary goals onto the Youma.

Ranma pinched the bridge of her nose in irritation. "_How_ did Gos get a working spell?"

Konatsu wasn't so concerned with that as much as the fact that a field of energy seemed to be luminescing over the fence. Curiosity was answered when a zombie lurched forward toward the gate, only to be bounced back by the field as it burst into a flaring aurora and died down as soon as the zombie recoiled. "What's causing that?"

Kasumi spoke up at this point, "I don't know, but it has been doing that since they started arriving." her brow furrowed, "I'm just glad that they aren't coming in, I have no way of serving that many guests!"

Ranma and Konatsu were spared having to respond as a burst of energy and light came from the back of the zombie hoard. It arced over their heads and struck the barrier, causing it to visibly buckle. As Sailor Moon took a defensive stance against a possible breach in the barrier, Kasumi stepped back in fright. As she did, Sailor Mercury noticed a glint coming from the pocket of the eldest Tendo girl's apron. Konatsu blinked and checked that it was not simply an optical illusion.

Gasping, Konatsu said, "Kasumi-sama! You have a Key!"

Even Ranma could hear the capital 'K,' "She _what_?" spat the shocked aquatransexual.

Kasumi was merely confused, then realized the senshi was talking about the object she had found in her cupboard. "Oh, yes!" she pulled it from her pocket and examined it. "I found it in my kitchen with a note that said it was a gift. I wonder who it's a gift for?"

As Ranma's expression grew strained to hide the incredulity she felt, Konatsu took another approach, "Kasumi, hold the key over your head," confused but willing to trust the Senshi, she did so, "Now say the words that are going through your head right now..."

Kasumi stood, somewhat shocked, her words coming haltingly, not quite willing to believe it was happening, she said, "Mars...Planet...Power...ACTIVATE!"

In the seconds before the brilliant flash of light grew too strong to look directly at, the other two senshi could see tears of joy streaming down Kasumi's face.

~o0o0o~

Usagi had her eyes shut.

For the first time that she could recall it wasn't merely due to fear or denial, but pure instinct. Her lizard brain (not that she knew what that was) told her she was about to plunge into water, ergo having one's eyes be shut at such time would be a modicum of protection from impact and debris. Her eyes had simply slapped closed on their own before she could make the conscious decision to not have them close.

Pushing aside her instinct, she opened her eyes to reveal the broad, open field of black that was the night-time waters of Tokyo Bay. She could hear, above the white-noise roar of the wind rushing past her ears, the rapid-fire "plip-plip-plip..." of her boots hitting the water at near super-sonic speeds, so fast that the water itself was essentially a hard surface. At the same time, she realized that if she slowed down, she'd be drinking the bay. Small ships that were still out and about left wakes that were like small valleys that she easily jumped and waves made hills. Realizing that she would need to turn lest she wind up in the open ocean, she used the ice skating skills that were part of her inherited memory from her life as Princess Serenity and leaned, her leading foot crossing gracefully in front of her trailing foot and creating a slow arc that also happened to cast a flume of water behind her. Out of the corner of her vision, she saw that the Enforcer was scrambling to catch up, having adapted her skating motions to cross-water transit.

Smiling a predatory grin that would have been better suited to Setsuna than herself, she arced her run _hard_ and did the seemingly impossible of a nearly 75-degree turn to mark an intercept path with her pursuer. In a blink, the distance closed, Usagi swinging her arm seemingly wildly, catching the Enforcer completely off guard as the empty bar of the cuffs clacked against the Enforcer's wrist, the energy brace completing the restraint in an instant. Usagi never stopped, and having the initiative she yanked the Enforcer back and off her feet. The Enforcer slapped against the wakes and waves of the water rather like a skipping stone as Sailor Moon's run gobbled up the distance to the shore. In a matter of a few blinks of an eye they were on solid ground, and Usagi dug her heals in, braking fast enough to cause her to pull to a complete stop right next to a tide-wall, the Enforcer slamming face-first into said wall, embedding so she was nearly flush with the surface.

A bright flash of silvery light indicated the last gasp of Silver Millenium personal shielding as the Enforcer fell backwards out of the human shaped impression in the wall, the stranger was apparently knocked out cold, for she didn't move once on the ground, but the steady rise and fall of her chest told Usagi her would-be pursuer was still alive.

After two breaths, Usagi shouted, "HA!" pointing at the unconscious form with her cuffed arm, "Teach you to mess with ME!" She started doing a jerky dance, "Ooh, yeah, who'da Moon Princess! I'm bad, I'm bad, you know it!"

At about this time her brain decided to remind her just what had just transpired in the last few minutes. She stopped, her arms falling slack to her sides, and gaped at the city, then turned to the bay. "That..." she began, "That...was...so...COOL! I can't wait to tell..." Another shocking realization hit her, this time prompting a palm to the face.

"Nobody's gonna believe this even happened!" she wailed in despair.

~o0o0o~

The incredible joy radiating from the new Sailor Mars was marred by the background whisper of the sound of zombies outside the walls of the Tendo home. By way of odd accompaniment to the usual Senshi ensemble was a push broom. The oddity was ignored as Mars serenely walked up to the gate. She stopped just inside the odd barrier and assumed an upright pose, her hands in the "pious prayer" position, her palms pressed tightly, her head slightly bowed and her eyes closed. Quietly, the other two senshi heard her say, "Mars Healing Fire," and then she stretched out her arms, her hands opening up so her thumbs and fingers overlapped and her palms were facing outward. Fire licked up from her hands as she touched the nearest zombie.

It must have been one of the first zombies, as it's aura faded, it's muscles went slack, and it crumbled into a pile of bone, dust, and rotted fabric.

"I did it!" gasped Mars as she felt Moon and Mercury's hands on her shoulders and arms, pulling her away from the portal. She slowly regained her awareness and realized that in her adrenaline infused state she had neglected to notice the zombies behind the one she had purged had attempted to grab her. She shuddered and realized her team mates had rescued her.

Her mood swung back to unbelievingly happy again as she spun back to the other two, grabbing them in a tight hug. Mercury was surprised, but quickly returned the hug. The primary response from Moon was a startled squawk and an awkwardly wrapped arm around the taller girl's back. "Thank you!" exclaimed the newest senshi, "Oh, I don't know what I did to deserve this blessing!"

"Uhm..." started Moon, "Yeah. We'll talk about that later, I think we've got more important things to worry about."

Her eyes threatening tears of joy, Mars released the other two. "Oh, of course, Sailor Moon." she bowed to the nominal leader of the trio.

It was about that time they were able to make out some ranting. "...damn you, Saotome! You had to bring the senshi in on this, you honorless cur!" the voice seemed to be fading into the distance. "Just you try and fight all my hordes of undead! If you and your senshi friends can survive, I shall be at Furinken High School, awaiting you to deliver Akane to me..." About that time the sound of the sulky boy's voice was too far distant to hear.

Sailor Moon sighed, "He's right, there's _waaaay_ too many of them for...er, Mars to..."

"Heal," interrupted Mercury.

"Right, to heal. By the time we finished healing one there'd be ten more."

Mercury and Mars both looked thoughtful, clearly trying to come up with a solution. Ranma started pacing, turning first to the gate with the zombies still shuffling outside, then to the other two. Halfway through her third circuit, she paused, something clicking in her head after having viewed one of the defining movies of the zombie genre earlier that night. "Say..." she began, "Do you suppose we can combine powers?"

Mars and Mercury shared puzzled expressions as Moon began smiling widely while staring at the two of them.

~o0o0o~

Usagi watched as The Enforcer started to stir. She watched as her mystery opponent shook her head, realized the helmet was no longer on, did a rapid inspection of her uniform, and realized that she was missing several tools as well as having her hands cuffed around a streetlight.

The Moon Princess was surprised to find the face of the girl from the train station underneath the helmet, but only somewhat. The way her life was going it wouldn't have surprised her if her little brother turned out to be the reincarnation of Buddha. Idly she kicked at the pile of weapons, bits of armor, and rocket boots that she'd removed from the Enforcer during her unconsciousness. Her hands were on her hips and she was in full "Moon Royalty" mode and ready to milk it for all it was worth.

At the sound of the shuffling equipment, the Enforcer looked Usagi in the eyes. A frown crossed the prisoner's lips, but that was the only emotion that was betrayed.

Sailor Moon chose to break the silence, "The Moon Kingdom fell over a millennium ago." This was fact, though not one known by the general public. So far as most knew, the senshi were simply Japan's unique brand of superhero, vigilantes that were permitted as long as there were no "normal" means of dealing with the various monsters that arrived on Tokyo's doorstep. That the Enforcer nodded in understanding only confirmed to Moon that the Enforcer knew much, _much_ more than the general public. That, along with what looked (to her decidedly untrained eye) like genuine article Moon Kingdom weapons and armor for non-senshi soldiers, told Usagi that this was no mere fan or stalker.

"The _whole_ kingdom." Usagi continued. "All the people, all the soldiers, all the senshi, even the princess and queen."

The Enforcer remained silent, but a bit of steel started to glint in those gray eyes.

"That means," Usagi glared at her captive, "That you are either way, _way_ old, or you were given this stuff by someone and had a bunch of lies told about me. You also failed. As soon as I call the others in Mercury will be taking apart your armor and Mars will be checking your aura."

At that, the Enforcer's lips tightened and she turned away, sinking down the light pole. Usagi realized that, whoever this person was, they weren't necessarily an enemy. She'd hurt as well the day it hit her that _all_ her subjects from the old Kingdom were long since dead, the vast majority murdered. Sighing, she crouched down, her arms crossed over her knees, "OK, so we got off to a rough start. Maybe we can be friends?" So saying, she held out her hand for a handshake.

Imagine her surprise when the Enforcer suddenly looked her in the eyes, studied her for a moment, then blurted out, "Usagi!"

~o0o0o~

There was an operational limit, it turned out, to how many different weapons Konatsu could summon at once with the Mercury Ice Weapon spell.

The three senshi had gone about experimenting a bit. The first thing they discovered was that there was, apparently, no limit to the number of times they could "cast." Both Kasumi and Konatsu had repeatedly cast during their experiments with no ill effect or weariness, and each casting was as strong, verbose, or robust as the last. They also discovered that, yes, the powers could indeed be mixed, apparently with MUCH greater effect than using their powers solo. A quick test had healed no less than eight undead and four "undead" in less than thirty seconds.

They also discovered that Mars' push broom was much, much more than just a cleaning tool. She could channel her healing fire along it and Moon confirmed it was a very well balanced weapon, testing it as a polearm-slash-bo. _That_ experiment proved _highly_ successful in showing that Moon's power could be channeled down Mars' broom, though the raw attack power that blasted out the head of the broom produced more of a "bowling for zombies" effect than having any healing power, so they scrapped that for the current situation and mentally filed it away under, "Wicked Cool Things To Hurt Large Numbers of Bad Guys With."

The end result of their tests was two highly serviceable Mercury Ice Shotguns with Mars Healing Fire trapped inside. They were quite beautiful, actually.

"OK," said Moon, racking the slide on the shotgun she held, 'chambering' a 'round,' "We need to get to Furinken. Mars, how's your roof hopp...?" Moon trailed off as she remembered who she was talking to, "Never mind. Street-level travel it is." She turned, the other two fell in behind her, "OK, Kasum...er, Mars aint got a shotgun, so Mercury, you an' me are on escort." Konatsu nodded, and though Moon didn't see it, she knew her orders would be carried out. "Let's do this!"

Moon started a lopping run to the gate, Mars and Mercury right behind.

~o0o0o~

Once upon a time there were two children.

There, of course, were always more children than that, but for this story there's only two that matter.

They were young, still wearing the uniforms of the first grade, but from two different schools. One went to the local public school, wore her hair in twinned ponytails, would start on the path to giving her teachers gray hairs, and would find out in about a decade that she was the reincarnation of the Moon Princess and that she would save all mankind several times over. The other went to a private school thanks to the family being fairly well off from various archaeological discoveries the child's father had made before the child was born.

After school each day the children would both arrive at their respective homes, change their clothes at the stern insistence of their parents, and depart for a nearby playground that just happened to adjoin the two blocks these children lived on.

One day the girl with the twin ponytails was licking a lollypop and playing on the swings. She did _so_ love sweets, and her parents were only too happy to give her them lately, what with mommy "expecting." Exactly _what_ mommy was expecting the little girl didn't quite understand, other than it having something to do with her parents asking her whether she wanted a little brother or some-such. That the circumstances meant that she would have greater access to sweets for the foreseeable future meant that the situation was A-O.K. in her book. It was a magnificently fine lollypop, too, the kind where the confection was nearly as big as her head and if she wasn't careful she could easily drop it from the weight.

Riding her sugar-high, she heard a commotion over by the sandbox. She slowed her swinging and observed as the other child of this story began to cry.

"Yeah, ya crybaby! You better cry!"

The girl with the lollypop frowned. She understood this behavior only a little. She also understood that she didn't like it one bit. Hopping off her swing, she started to stomp her kawaii little feet over to the altercation.

Meanwhile, two other kids, both _boys_, most likely HIGHLY infected with cooties, were laughing. "Yeah!" began the boy who hadn't spoken earlier, "This is _our_ playground, you can only play in it when we say you can!"

About this time, the little girl had arrived at the site of conflict. "Hey, meanies! You stop that right now!"

The two boys laughed, the larger of the two leaning in close, "Make me squirt!"

The little girl was now seeing red. One thing she just couldn't stand was someone being mean to others. "KYAA!" she bellowed suddenly, her very large, very heavy lollypop came swinging down on the bully's head.

"YOWCH!" cried the boy. He darted away from the apparently possessed little girl. When his buddy acted like he might make a scene, the girl stomped hard on his foot. Now also yowling in pain, the second boy ran after the first.

The girl turned to the poor child now simply crying in the sand. "Aww, are you OK?" she asked innocently.

"N...no!" sniffled the other kid, "Go away! I don't like anybody!"

The girl with the blond ponytails crouched down, her hands on her knees. "It's OK, those two meanies are gone. Maybe we can be friends?" The girl stretched her hand out to shake, a gesture her father taught her was a way of saying you liked the other person and wanted to know them better.

The other child slowly stopped crying, now sniffling through tears, grabbed the girl's hand. "OK. My name's Masami, what's yours?"

The blond girl smiled the innocent, toothy smile she'd manage to hold onto into adulthood and beyond. "My name's Usagi!"

As the two new friends walked off hand in hand, neither of them bothered to recall the now broken lollypop lying on the ground, the disk of candy now broken, the largest unbroken piece still on the stick in the shape of a crescent moon.

~o0o0o~

Ranma slammed the butt of her shotgun into the face of a zombie, doing her best to ignore the crack in the ice and the melt water that ran down her arms. They needed a chance to stop and replenish the firearms. Both Konatsu's and her gun were showing major signs of wear and tear as the fought their way through the hoards. Kasumi was holding up well, her skills _very_ rusty from years of disuse, she nonetheless managed to heal zombie after zombie using melee attacks as she could.

With the pained sound that only comes from a block of ice fracturing, Konatsu's shotgun shattered as the kunoichi attempted to face-check a particularly aggressive zombie. Ranma chambered the last round of healing fire she had, stepped in right next to her teammate and fired on the zombie at point-blank range. The woman's cursed aura was nearly instantly purified, and she collapsed in an unconscious heap at their feet. The shotgun was finished, though, shattering as the last of it's rounds was expelled.

Now out of options, they began casting their eyes about, searching for any sign of a safe area that wasn't infested with zombies. The trio continued to fight the hoard, but without the ability to permanently de-zombify the hoard, they were being swarmed with ever-growing numbers.

Just as they were back-to-back and the nearest of the shambling undead was about to grab at them, they heard a distinctive sound of generated plasma and the sound of superheated air just before a shot impacted with the nearest undead. It reacted just like the previously cured zombies who were genuinely raised dead and disintegrated. Before they could fully process what was going on, three more shots eliminated three more threats. The zombies, still possessing of at least a small measure of self-preservation, slowed their attack just enough for the trio to search for the source of a very familiar sound...

"OOOOH-HOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO...~!"

Ranma reacted as though nails were scraping across a chalkboard. Konatsu blinked in confusion and Kasumi...

"Oh, my...I wonder why a nice girl like Kodachi is out so late on a night like this?"

Ranma's exasperation didn't let her stay silent this time. "She aint a nice girl. Oy, Kodach...huh?"

The group's nominal leader had to pause in confusion, for the results of her rooftop scanning gaze did _not_ reveal the usually black motifed gymnast but a woman wearing chunky but scant armor, colored a mix of red and blue that nearly matched the colors of Mars and Mercury. A helmet covered her head, but dropping out the back was a long, flowing white mane of hair that went to the girl's waist. Her eyes were covered by a visor and a bright yellow scarf adorned her neck.

"Hey, who'r you?" exclaimed Ranma.

"Hmmm," came a rather snooty reply, "You seem to be a magical girl team of some sort. Doubtless of no consequence."

Now it was Konatsu's and Kasumi's turn to bristle. "How can you not recognize the Sailor Senshi?" gasped the ninja.

Ranma held up her hand for silence. "Whatever, looks like you've got the healing fire stuff..."

"Oh, is that what you call it? Frighteningly simple to replicate. I simply analyzed your attacks and replicated them." So saying, her armor suddenly shifted into solid red and she backhanded a zombie, Mars fire arced out and 'healed' her target, this one a salaryman who slid into a gutter, mercifully unconscious.

Ranma kept her temper in check, "Fine, fine. Looks like you can help us, are you gonna fight or jabber all night?"

Their apparent ally smiled in apparent approval at the redhead. "Oh, I shall. After all, it isn't often one gets to just 'let loose,' as the little people put it."

"Fine, fine." Ranma held out her hand for the girl to shake, "Name's Sailor Moon, the one in blue is Mercury and the one in red is Mars. What's your name?"

"I am Protogirl, the first and finest Daughter of Light."

Sailor Moon refrained from rolling her eyes.

~o0o0o~

Time rolls forward, irrespective of the wishes of little children, and Masami's father found himself on the trail of a new discovery. It seemed a rich businessman had stumbled onto some strange metal in the glacier-covered hinterlands of Alaska while on vacation and decided to send an investigator. Masami's father, being a _very_ good, if intentionally unknown, archaeologist that specialized in the incredibly narrow field of people, consisting of only a handful on the planet, that was investigating the controversial theory that there was a hyper-advanced civilization that had some relations with Earth and had left some indications in trade agreements, artifacts, and sites that was suspected as having been used as landing facilities. Given what happened to the egyptologists who had expressed similar ideas about the pyramids, this small community was understandably tight-lipped and their actions and motives were known only to a few well-heeled and sympathetic sponsors. Therefore, when previously mentioned "rich businessman" spotted the mysterious metal, he recognized it from the findings of this somewhat secretive group.

Thus it came to pass that little Masami was once again crying in the playground when Usagi hurried to join her bestest friend ever.

Ever eager to cheer up others, Usagi hugged her friend. "What's wrong?"

Masami sniffled, "D...daddy is taking me to A...Alaska..."

Usagi's world was crushed Masami was her BESTEST friend (so far) and didn't want to lose her _bestest_ friend. Then she had an idea, "I know, you can live with me! We can even be married! Nobody can take you away when you're married, that's what my mommy says!"

Masami still sniffled, but smiled, nodding. "I'd like that!"

So saying, Usagi and Masami threw together some hastily made plans and ran off to their separate homes. Neither would return to the park, to the heartbreak of both. Usagi's parents wouldn't let her out because it was too close to dinner time and Masami's father, already running late for the plane thanks to his child's impulsive departure for the park, simply whisked them both off to the airport.

~o0o0o~

Ranma growled as she kicked in the door to the gymnasium of the school. It had taken them three hours to make it all the way there, being able to rest only briefly when they could find safe rooms that they could bar against the (by now) hoards of zombies. They were able to take those brief moments to replenish their weapons and catch their breath, and even Proto-girl needed to pause for a while to let her weapons recharge.

She was understandably unwilling to put up with any crap as she stomped across the gymnasium. She intellectually recognized that Kasumi and Konatsu, still resplendent in their Sailor Senshi suits, though the grasping and clawing (and biting) zombies had done a number on the ribbons and sequins. Proto-girl's armor may has well have not been touched, but the girl's bare torso, legs, and arms showed scratches with something that didn't quite look like blood dripping from them.

The boy who would be Gosunkugi was ranting something on the stage to the side of the gym. Something about "ruling the world," or somesuch similar nonsense that all villains do. Ranma-ne-Moon only really registered that words were being spoken, she was by this time only seeing red. Combat, she loved. A match of skill and going toe-to-toe with a combatant that could match your every move was a form of art that for her rivaled anything by the great masters of painting or music. What Gosunkugi had set upon them was just raw numbers of grinding, thoughtless minions that were only really threatening in that there were so many. And worse, if the Moonlight Shinobi hadn't intervened, they would have wound up killing, by now, countless innocent people.

_Where IS the Shinobi, anyway?_ thought Ranma.

~o0o0o~

Sailor V recognized that she was being helped. She was, frankly, very grateful for it. She had encountered the zombies roughly two hours earlier and had a running fist-fight just to keep from being caught. She didn't even have time to use her one special attack and wasn't sure if it would be effective on so large a group.

What she did know, however, was that periodically she would see down a darkened alley as she ran, or darting through a nearby pool of light from a street light, the shadowy outline of her silent partner.

The only clue she had to the mystery ally's identity was when she had misjudged a zombie's proximity and it nearly bit her nose off. Only the _thunk_ of a shuriken into it's face stopped it, and Nabiki noted it was in the shape of a heart.

She punched the zombie, it's remains scattering across the sidewalk, and continued running, sensing her ally moving with her.

~o0o0o~

"...and since I hadn't yet become Sailor Moon, there was no way for there to be a Sailor Moon in the first place. That's why you can't arrest me for abandoning my post, I _am_ the Moon Princess." Usagi's hand rubbed between Masami's shoulder blades. She had unshackled the self-titled Enforcer and they had been talking for a good while. Usagi mostly was updating her friend on what had happened in her life since they had last met on the playground all those years ago.

The two had shared a good cry as Masami began reassembling her Enforcer armor, especially during the parts where Usagi detailed the final end of the war between Metallia and the last remnants of the Moon Kingdom reincarnated on Earth. They shared a good chuckle as Sailor Moon recounted her first "mission" as a senshi, poked fun at the Moon Cats in a knowing way, and commented on weapons and armor and the most effective means of killing a youma, which Masami had apparently gotten a decent amount of experience doing in the Second Beryl War in the Americas, which didn't have the advantages of having a Magical Girl squad specifically tailored to deal with the threat.

The atmosphere had gotten so cordial, in fact, that Masami took Usagi _completely_ off guard when the (only) modern Enforcer suddenly became very serious, knelt on one knee, and bowed low. "My princess," said Masami to the stunned Usagi, "I pledge my fealty, my weapons, and my life to you, in birth, in life, and in death, and in the eternal reign of Your Kingdom. My honor is yours, your pain is mine, and your love is my mother's milk. For the eternal and righteous reign of the House of Moon."

Sailor Moon blinked, then gulped nervously. She vaguely recalled the official fealty oath of the Honor Guard of the Moon Kingdom, when the Senshi and Moon Cats had realized that eventually they'd need to know (or remember) the proper forms for the building of the Silver Millenium and Crystal Tokyo had dug it up from the archives in the Mercury Computer. Stammering, she struggled to remember the official response.

"Er, uhm...Masami, of the house...uh...oh, I forget your last name! Uh, We accept your oath and...stuff..." she struggled for a moment or two more, "Oh, forget it! Am I the last member of the royal house or not? I get to make new rules if I need to, and one rule is my bestest friend from when I was little doesn't need to bow and scrape!" Smiling, she bent down and lifted her friend's hands off the ground and held them together with hers, standing up straight and smiling as she looked into Masami's eyes. "Thanks, Masami, I accept your oath, and I'll be happy and proud to have such a good friend on my side."

With Masami's visor raised but all other armor in place, the smile and tear-filled eyes were all that Usagi needed to know that she'd said the right thing, formal speech or not.

Interruptions should probably have been expected, but it was several levels of embarrassing when she heard the distinctive throat-clearing of her boyfriend/fiance and Sailor Mars' voice saying, "Did you two need a moment or two more, and should we start preparing invitations?"

The two glanced over at the other Senshi and Tuxedo Mask and both turned bright red as they realized they were in the classic "marriage proposal" pose.

~o0o0o~

Konatsu was holding Gosunkugi's body, which hadn't stopped laughing maniacally. They had finished off the last of the zombies (in this case, the high school's basketball team) and the resident ninja had slipped in and incapacitated the possessed boy. The laughing started when Proto-girl's armor had gone from blue and red to a somewhat deeper red and gray and her power shot, instead of being the now familiar healing fire, was white-hot plasma that Ranma kept from blasting Gosunkugi's head off at the last second with a well timed deflection.

"Damnit, Protogirl, you nearly killed him!"

Protogirl sniffed haughtily and muttered something about simply ending the problem.

Mars stepped forward, her hands in the prayer position, and began the simple chant that would activate the spell. As the fire started flickering from her hands, the possessing creature that was inside Gosunkugi started truly ranting, "You'll never stop the death of the human race, Senshi! Like every visitation before, your species will fall and never blight this universe agaaaaaaaiiiiiinn..."

Mercury and Moon shared a concerned look as the poor wannabe summoner slumped unconscious in Mercury's grip.

"Well, if that is _all_, and I don't even get the pleasure in absorbing his power, I'm going home!" Rather like a spoiled princess, Proto-girl stomped her way to the nearest door and disappeared into the night.

"What do you supposed that last part was about? Are these freaks after the original Senshi?" voiced Moon as she hefted Gos' form into a fireman's carry.

"I...don't know." admitted Mercury. "The behavior of these monsters doesn't match any previous pattern."

Not having any further evidence, they chose not to randomly speculate, sticking to more mundane topics as they delivered Gosunkugi to his parents' place. The poor boy apparently had no memory other than a hazy recollection of an evil presence in his room. His parents could easily have been knocked over with a feather at the presence of the Sailor Senshi in their home...had they not been asleep in front of the TV when the group arrived and slept soundly through Mars reviving the boy briefly and tucking him into bed, Moon questioning him on the possession and Mercury checking for and confiscating anything else potentially dangerous from the room. (Two small statues that were actually incorrectly assembled locking puzzles for a pair of world destroying demons, a book on love spells, and what appeared to be a memory altering orb that caused the user to forget they had it, the Mercury armor seemed to be effective in damping it's effects, however)

Moon carried Mars as they roof-hopped back to the Ucchan, Konatsu using a secret stash place on the roof to hide the confiscated items, then they continued back to Kimi's place.

Moon stopped the trio outside the door, listened with her neko-ken and senshi enhanced hearing to confirm they wouldn't be overheard, then turned to the others.

Mars spoke up, "My, is this where you live?"

Moon smirked and responded as Mercury giggled, "I guess the outfits have a disguise field or something. No, this isn't where I live." Moon touched the jewel on her tiara with the intent of dropping the armor. As it collapsed into her yin-yang jewel, Mercury did the same.

Kasumi gasped, "Ranma-kun! Kontatsu-chan? How long...?"

Konatsu gently tugged on Kasumi's elbow. "Later, Kasumi-sama. Please return to your civilian clothes quickly. We have to reassure Ranma's hostess for the night that we're alright."

Still a little shell-shocked from discovering herself to be a Sailor Senshi, Kasumi obeyed, lovingly tucking the key into her apron.

As soon as the keys and jewel were secreted out of sight, Kimi's door flew open. "Ranma! Konatsu! There you are! Who's this with you? What happened? Is everything OK?"

Konatsu's training as hostess from when he served in a teahouse was well used as they entered and reassured the girl that everything was fine. Once Kasumi's relationship to Ranma was explained, she was invited to stay the night, especially given the late hour and the happenings that Kimi had gladly sat out of.

Of course, that didn't stop Kasumi from beaming and being unable to explain to Ranma's friend why she was so gosh-darn happy.

~o0o0o~

After a round of introductions were made, Usagi and her friends, Masami included, retired to Rei's temple. It was, by then, fairly late, so calls were made to parents as Mamoru made some quick runs on his bike to gather the things the girls would need for the next day. The impromptu sleepover began cordially, with Masami instantly connecting with Minako due to a shared interest in sports, Ami thanks to the Moon Kingdom tech they both were clearly familiar with, and Makoto thanks to the fact that both were in the same situation, parent wise.

Indeed, it had come out in conversation on their trip to the temple that Masami's father had died fairly early in the trip to Alaska in a cave in. The poor girl had been reluctant to give up any details, including who raised her from such an early age, and the others chose not to pry, relying on Usagi's natural tendency to extract people's story through her loving, trust-inducing nature.

Conversations drifted from the Moon Kingdom to the destined Silver Millenium to school and clothes until it landed on what any slumber party, through ancient tradition, was bound to land on: boys.

"_Again_ with your old sempai!" Mina ribbed Makoto half-heartedly.

"Hey, he was hot!" laughed Makoto.

"Say, Masami, do you have a boyfriend?" asked Rei.

At this the Enforcer blushed from her hairline to her pajama top. "I...no...I don't...er...I don't like boys."

Ami glanced up from her computer and smiled warmly. "That's alright," she reassured the newest person that she might call a friend, "Two of the Outers are lesbians."

Makoto's eyes lit up, having something of a hero-worship for Haruka. "Ooooh, so is there a girl you like?"

Masami now had her eyes fixed to the floor, she nodded shyly, her blush practically glowing by now.

Mina joined in, enjoying a good romantic crush as much as anyone, goading Masami into revealing her heart's desire. "Dish, girlfriend! You got it bad!" she said with a smile.

"Oh, well...um...I kinda..." she couldn't seem to continue, but her eyes kept darting up to one person in particular. Mina and Makoto followed her gaze to...

Usagi groaned, slapping her palm to her forehead and collapsing into her futon. "Oh, MAN!" she whined, "Not _another_ one!"

-~0o0~-

Author's Notes:

Sincerest apologies to those who have loyally awaited this second half of Chapter 8. I have had many, many life events come up in my life since I published Chapter 8, Part 1; including having little girl, losing a job, getting a job, and coming out as transgender to the world. I've been a touch busy, and it turns out that writing zombies takes quite a bit of effort. ;) Chapter 9 WILL be written, and hopefully soon…although it looks like I may be getting another, better job that will include a MOVE to another CITY…this is what success in life looks like people, you have been warned. :p


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